FROM THE DESK OF The Structured Writing Teacher

I know I usually talk about writing, but we need to start with some math first. Let's take the number 10 and multiply it by 180 . You get 1,800 .  Now divide that by 60 . What does this all add up to and WHY AM I DOING MATH?!??! Because if you spend just 10 minutes a day on an ELA warm-up, that adds up to an entire month of instructional time over the course of a school year. A MONTH. So… are your warm-ups worth that much? If those 10 minutes aren’t building writing skills, strengthening grammar, or helping with test prep… they’re lost time. That’s why I stopped doing “Motivation Monday” and “Word Wednesday” and started using a structured routine that actually builds writing momentum. ✏️ What I Use Instead: The ELA Three-a-Day It’s quick. It’s structured. It’s powerful. And it works all year long. 🔹 1. Sentence Combining We start every day with this. At the beginning of the year, students practice simple compound sentences—adding commas and conjunctions correctly. As the year ...