I admit it: I am not good with social media.

I have a Facebook account to keep up with my children and my grandson. In the last two or three years, though, I have been using Facebook to learn about teaching middle school English language arts.  I have joined a few middle school ELA teachers’ groups, and the support there has been wonderful.

As for Instagram and Twitter, I have accounts but use them so seldom that I forget my usernames and passwords. That’s a problem!

Another problem–I forget to check in Insta and Twitter.  Yet, as I sat here this morning, I followed a few teachers whose Teachers Pay Teachers resources I love.  And I have found a wealth of information, support, resources, and professional development.

These are my favorites on Instagram:

2PeasandaDog— Kristy is a middle school ELA teacher.  She provides some rigorous and creative lesson ideas on her blog.

MudandInkTeaching–When I grow up, I want to be Amanda!  I have learned so much from her over the last year or so.  Whenever I can arrange it (she is a busy lady!), I try to do some one-on-one coaching with her.  It is some of the best professional development I do, even after over 40 years in the classroom.

ReadWriteTeachELA–When I began researching (and using) Lucy Calkins’ Unit of Study for middle school reading and implementing a full-blown reading workshop model in my class, I found Megan.  The first thing that caught my eye was her hair!  Her blog posts describing her use of the units of study has helped me adapt them to my own situation, and her materials on Teachers Pay Teachers have helped me develop my own.

SecondarySara–I began using her resources when I taught high school English. I confess I don’t use them as much in the middle school ELA program, but I love her ideas and modify them to suit my needs.

Study All Knight–I am new to Danielle Knight.  I will be following her to learn more from her.

The Caffeinated Class Marie and Amanda have a wonderful podcast, Brave New Teaching.  And their Master Classes are so good. I have learned much from them about curriculum planning through their Curriculum Rehad master class.

Ditch That Textbook –Matt Miller has been one of my mentors in using technology in the classroom.  Recently, I’ve been following his series about using ChatGPT in the classroom.  He provides such great professional development for using technology in the classroom.  Because of him, I have all but stopped using traditional textbooks in my middle school classroom. I find, though, that middle school students benefit greatly from old-fashioned technologies–the pencil and paper!– as much as they do computers.

The Daring English Teacher — Christina is a high school English teacher, but I find some good ideas for adaptation to middle school.

Angela Watson — Angela’s 40-Hour Teacher Work Week curriculum is so helpful.  I haven’t implemented all her ideas–I pick one or two a year to work on.  However, because of her, I leave school without a bag of papers to grade and lessons to plan.

Room213tpt — I subscribed to Jackie’s Creating a Climate for Learning. I have found it very useful for materials.  Some of it needs to be adapted for middle school students, but the master classes on reading workshop in secondary classrooms has been worth it.

PrestoPlans — The subscription to PrestoPlans is worth it!  I have used her resources for a year or so.  Especially useful are the resources for planning–the unit plan template makes sense to me, and I have merged her ideas with the template my school uses.  Likewise, the lesson plan template is simple.  I only use it when I am planning a completely new lesson (I have been planning lessons for over 40 years!) and when I am working with new teachers.

I could add even more to this list, but these are some of my “go-to’s” for professional development and inspiration.

I’ll investigate Twitter next time.