"With the help of graduate student David Fictum, I collected several creative, practical and entertaining exercises that can function as bell ringers or sponge activities. Here they are:"

"This week, find a quiet place (or some earbuds) and investigate a feature of The Times that is totally auditory. In the process, you will hit on components from one of the four Common Core literacy anchor standards for college and career readiness - speaking and listening. Then, explore other podcasts to find more from this medium to share with your students and supplement classroom activities."

"Simmons presents a series of creative activities that have advanced her high school students' vocabularies and impressed on them the power of words."

"Below, a challenge to students to write their own great opening lines, along with examples, tips, a quiz, and some lively student samples to help. "

"We've been publishing a Word of the Day every school day since our blog began, and sometime this December we'll reach our 1,000th. A perfect time, we thought, to celebrate with a contest. So here's the challenge: Along with our collaborators for Word of the Day - the linguists who run Vocabulary.com and Visual Thesaurus - we invite you to create a short video that defines or teaches any of the words in our collection. You have until Dec. 3 to do it, and all the rules and regulations, plus some inspiration from other students and teachers, are below."

"What makes a good essay? And what makes a bad one? Educational consultant Dave Marcus joins Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson to offer his advice by using examples from student submissions including the opening of senior Michele Hau's essay."

"Jessica Contrera's "The End of the Waffle House" begins on the morning when a big change comes to a small square of Bloomington, Ind. "Tap, tap, tap. Bud Powell's aluminum cane led the way as he circled the floor of Bloomington's Waffle House. His Waffle House. That Wednesday in September, the owner didn't know what to do with himself. The smell of frying oil, the same greasy perfume that had greeted customers for 46 years, wafted into his nose as he wandered past the vinyl booths. He sat down, then stood up again." Contrera had never been to the old restaurant surrounded by new student apartments before, but when the senior from Akron, Ohio, started her semester at Indiana University, she saw the sign reading "We will close Sept. 4." And she wanted to tell the story. Contrera visited the Waffle House a week before it closed, when she met her three major characters, as well as the day it closed and the day it was torn down. She also spoke with about a dozen other customers and staff who didn't make it into the story, but did help her understand what the business meant to the community. In her reporting, Contrera's professor of practice, Pulitzer-prize winner and Poynter writing fellow Tom French, pushed her to find details. Fifteen drafts later, those details include many small things that help readers feel what the closing of the old restaurant meant to its regulars, the owner and the community."

"Out of Eden Learn is a unique online learning community designed to accompany Paul Salopek's Out of Eden Walk. Through Out of Eden Learn, students from around the world can engage in Paul's journey and all that it represents. They explore their own neighborhoods, investigate contemporary global issues, and reflect on how they as individuals fit into a broader geographical and historical context. In addition, they share their perspectives and interact with one another on an exciting digital platform that uses social media as a springboard for deep, meaningful learning. The goal is to ignite students' interest in the wider world and support them to become more informed, thoughtful, and engaged "global citizens.""

"Questions for teachers, parents and students, from an educational psychologist"

"Anson Smith crossed the finish line of the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon on Sunday 10 minutes ahead of his goal. He attributed the 1-hour, 40-minute performance to the 16-year-old waiting on the other side. "It's easy to run when you're thinking about people who can't do it," said Smith, the boys' soccer coach at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, N.J. Smith, 36, was among more than 22,000 people who arose at dawn to run the venerable 13.1-mile course through Center City. Many did it for the love of running. Others, like Smith, ran for a cause. Smith ran to raise money for Miguel Coelho, one of his soccer players, who was diagnosed with leukemia in May."

"Draft features essays by grammarians, historians, linguists, journalists, novelists and others on the art of writing - from the comma to the tweet to the novel - and why a well-crafted sentence matters more than ever in the digital age."

"Some high schools are now giving parents the ability to constantly check up on their children's grades online, and it has already become a source of stress and debate for parents and students. Lahey, a former teacher, is one of many parents who have chosen not to use the services for fear of creating a sense of distrust between her and her son. "For the time being, I choose to trust in the power of open communication and my son's emerging sense of responsibility and character," Lahey writes.

"Ah, listening, the neglected literacy skill. I know when I was a high school English teacher this was not necessarily a primary focus; I was too busy honing the more measurable literacy skills -- reading, writing, and speaking. But when we think about career and college readiness, listening skills are just as important. This is evidenced by the listening standards found in the Common Core and also the integral role listening plays in collaboration and communication, two of the four Cs of 21st century learning. So how do we help kids become better listeners? Check out these tactics for encouraging a deeper level of listening that also include student accountability:"

"The magazine story behind Sebastian Junger's celebrated nonfiction book A Perfect Storm ran in Outside magazine in October 1994. "The Storm" (4,765 words) told the story of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat out of Gloucester, Mass., that sank amid horrific weather, killing everyone aboard. It's a harrowing narrative, and particularly remarkable for being - by virtue of nature and fate - a write-around. Storyboard's questions and comments for Junger are in red; Junger's answers - which he kindly offered by phone - are in blue."

"In New York City, 26 percent of students in third through eighth grade passed the state exams in English, and 30 percent passed in math, according to the New York State Education Department. The exams were some of the first in the nation to be aligned with a more rigorous set of standards known as Common Core, which emphasize deep analysis and creative problem-solving. Last year, under an easier test, 47 percent of city students passed in English, and 60 percent in math."

"Why Teach Students to Craft Digital Writing?"

"Explore the power of language, look at the world with a fresh sense of wonder, and build reading and writing skills. These video segments, drawn from the PBS Poetry Everywhere series, capture some of the voices of poetry, past and present." Poems can be browsed through categories.

Short non-fiction pieces

"Back in January, when I asked high school seniors to send in college application essays about money, class, working and the economy, I wasn't sure what, if anything, would come in over the transom. But 66 students submitted essays, and with the help of Harry Bauld, the author of "On Writing the College Application Essay," we've selected four to publish in full online and in part in this column. That allowed us to be slightly more selective than Princeton itself was last year. What these four writers have in common is an appetite for risk. Not only did they talk openly about issues that are emotionally complex and often outright taboo, but they took brave and counterintuitive positions on class, national identity and the application process itself. For anyone looking to inspire their own children or grandchildren who are seeking to go to college in the fall of 2014, these four essays would be a good place to start."

Writing rubrics aligned to the standards