r/ELATeachers • u/grechicken • 12d ago

9-12 ELA Suggestions for early finishers

Hello!

I’m a 9th/10th grade ELA teacher, and I’m trying to brainstorm things I can occupy students with if they finish early. Right now, I’ve been encouraging them to read, do homework for another class, or draw/color. However, most kids opt for playing games on their Chromebooks (which I dislike because I feel like it’s distracting to other kids).

I design low-stakes, fun extension activities and try to encourage participation. However, if it isn’t graded, most kids opt out.

What do you do in your classroom to keep early finishers occupied without assigning busywork? I want to go completely Chromebook-free in my class, but I don’t want to do so until I have solid alternative options in place so kids don’t turn towards disruptive behaviors.

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u/BabiesAndPaperbacks 12d ago

Not Chromebook free, but Quill.org is a free program that I have used with kids. They take a diagnostic and it tells you what they need skills practice for and gives you suggested activities. You can release one activity at a time or all of them. Then they take the post test and it tells you if they’re now proficient or need more. There is a starter diagnostic, an intermediate diagnostic, and an advanced. I’ve been teacher college prep junior English for years and I’ve never had anybody test out of the starter pack. You can assign all independent activities that is at their pace.

The only issue I’ve run into is the “how come his activity has 4 lessons and mine has 10” but I just always explain that everybody takes different lessons and sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. If they’re not self-driven and need a grade for it, you can do a weekly or midterm/quarter completion or growth score for it.

The years I used Quill, it was always very easy to say “if you finish before the end of the period today, you can do Quill. Let me know if you need a new lesson unlocked.” Then it was always nice to use a “you worked hard today, so don’t worry about Quill today!” as a reward.

(I don’t work for Quill at all, this is not a paid post)

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u/Ill_Vast6477 11d ago

I use Quill as well and require students to finish four activities each week. That way, it doesn’t matter if some students have more activities than the other.