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Introducing Pencils and Prologues Society & Membership

Pencils and Prologues is a Library of Bell Ringers that will not only allow you to start your classes with confidence and ease, but these activities are quick activities that can be used in so many ways including warm ups, exit tickets, stations, formative assessments and more!

Start each Class with Confidence

without sleepless nights or long after school hours

  • Are you scrambling to set up your warm ups everyday?
  • Are your warm ups meaningless time fillers?
  • Do your students wander into class without purpose or direction?
  • Is there pressure for your students to do better on standardized tests like the AP® exams?

Does it seem that everyday your students wander in and then socialize?  Or worse yet, they just get on their phones?

 

A Bell Ringer Library of 100s of quick activities just might be your solution!

  • Decide once and create routines that you can use EVERY SINGLE DAY.
  • Establish a warm up routine that adds to your classes for the outcome of the day OR the outcome the year.
  • Be ready for your students to get to work immediately.
  • Encourage meaningful test prep that doesn't feel like test prep.

& get more free time…

The time saving benefits of membership:

You will get all of this!

100s of Quick Activities

100s of activities that students can do in 10 minutes or less. Use them as warm ups, exit tickets, formative assessments, sponge activities and more.

10+ Styles

Choose to focus on skills like vocabulary, close reading, argument and writing OR on specific texts like Macbeth, Hamlet, Of Mice and Men and more. Poetry, Prose and Non-fiction.

New Content & Monthly Bonuses

Each month you will get new content and limited time bonuses.

Download & Use

Ready to use materials that you can download, print/post and use. Most activities come as PDFs, PNGs, Powerpoint and Slides.

Hey There, I'm Jeanmarie and I Can't Wait To Help...

I am currently a high school English teachers which means I am still IN IT with you.  I have spent years working through the best quick activities and now I want to share them with you.


I have used these activities to bring order to the start of class, do quick formative assessments and earn a 75%+ passing rate on the AP® Literature exam.

Jeanmarie McLaughlin for Pencils and Prologues Membership for high school English teachers

All Members Get Full Access To:

a library of ready to use quick activities to use as bell ringers, exit tickets, assessments, stations and more.

Poem of the Week

Practice close reading with short poems over the course of a week.

Passage of the Week

Practice close reading with fiction over the course of a week.

RA of the Week

Practice Rhetorical Analysis with excerpts from speeches and other nonfiction over the course of a week.

Argument of the Week

Practice argumentations skills through This or That, Would You Rather and In the News.

Allusion of the Week

Introduce Biblical, Mythological and Fairy Tale Allusions through origin stories and practice with poetry and excerpts from longer texts.

& More

> Text specific activities for Macbeth, Hamlet, Of Mice and Men and more.
> Vocabulary through a Greek and Latin root.
> Activities to use with any text.

Here's what people Are Saying About Our Bell Ringers

Helping close the gap

I have been using the poem of the week with my AP Lit students to help close the gap they have in poetry. When we first began, my students read a poem and automatically said, "I don't know what that means." As we review poems three days a week, they are slowly getting more comfortable reading poetry and learning how to embrace the struggle. I am confident that this is helping my students get past the block they have in their minds and establishing a growth mindset for reading poetry.

Beske
AP English teacher

Pay attention to author's techniques

My students loved using [lessons in close reading] as an introduction to their short story unit. It enabled them to close read and pay attention to the author's techniques.
Bernadette
English teacher

So quick and easy

Love these [bell ringers] ~ so quick and easy to implement, even when I forget to prep for Monday morning. :o)
Jennifer
English teacher

Get Instant Access to Awesome Membership

MONTHLY

Recurring payment, cancel anytime
$ 9
99
each month
  • Full Access to the Bell Ringer Catalog
  • 100s of ready to use, quick activities including close reading, vocabulary, writing, argument and more!
  • New activities added each month
  • Limited time bonuses each month
  • Exclusive content!
  • Try for just $1
  • Cancel Any Time
Try it For $1

ANNUAL

BEST VALUE - Save $19.98
$ 99
99
per year
  • Full Access to the Bell Ringer Catalog (over $500 value)
  • 100s of ready to use, quick activities including close reading, writing, argument and more!
  • New activities added each month
  • Limited time bonuses each month
  • Exclusive content!
  • Try for just $1
  • Cancel Any Time
  • Two months free!
I am ready for a full Year
2 Months Free

Try for just $1

I want you to be sure about your decision to join Pencils and Prologues and because I am so certain that you will be, I am going to let you try it for 5 days for just $1.


If at the end of 5 days, you decide that the membership is not right for you, then you can cancel.  No harm, no foul.


But I am so certain that you will be amazed by all the content, that I will gladly let you in to see everything for less that a vending machine bottle of water.

Frequently Asked Questions

Think Netflix or Hulu or Disney+.  You pay a monthly fee and for as long as you pay that fee, you get access to the content.

And sometimes the content changes.  New things are added and others are available for only a limited amount of time.

The great thing about the activities in the library is that they can really be used in a variety of ways:  they can be exit tickets, formative assessments, filler activities or even sub plans.  

You will have immediate access to hundreds of quick activities when you join including: poem of the week, passage of the week, rhetorical analysis of the week, allusion of the week, Greek and Latin roots, Roots in Context and so much more.

 

Additionally, each month, new quick activities will be added and you will have access to limited time bonuses.

You will find most materials in the form of PDFs.  Many are also provided as PNG files as well as PowerPoint and Google Slides.

 

Additionally, there are web based previews for many of the activities. (Exclusive to the membership)

TPT is like a hotel.  You get access to a room, it’s generally clean and you get short term access.

 

The membership is more like an AirBnB.  You get access to the whole house, the freedom to poke around in a variety of rooms and access to the host.

 

TPT gives you access to just the room, a single purchase.  You download and hope it’s right.

 

The membership gives you access to all the rooms, previews before you download, video support and direct access to the host. (Oh, that’s me!)

 

And your host is a super host with 30 years of classroom experience.

I will be honest:  that depends.

 

I design my curriculum specifically for upper level high school students.  (That’s my area of expertise–I have exclusively taught 11 and 12 for the last 20 years, but I did teach 10 for the decade before that.)

 

BUT, I run many of my ideas and products by my daughter who is in ninth grade.

 

Many of the materials are adaptable and I feel confident you will find something for your students in grades 9-12.  

 

If you teach middle school, I would definitely take advantage of the $1 trial to see if what I offer is right for you.

It is easy to cancel.  With just a few clicks you will be able to stop payment.

 

I want you to be happy, so if you decide the membership is not right for you, it should be easy to leave and it should be easy to come back.

The Bell Ringer (ie. short activity) Catalog includes 10+ styles of quick activities:

  • Poem of the Week
  • Passage of the Week (Prose Fiction)
  • Rhetorical Analysis of the Week (Nonfiction)
  • Allusion of the Week
  • Vocabulary including Roots in Context (of texts like Macbeth, Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest, Of Mice and Men and more) and Roots with vocabulary words for daily or weekly study
  • Activities to use with any text like 3-2-1s, character pyramid, symbolism pyramid and more.
  • Activities for specific texts like Macbeth, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Of Mice and Men, Our Town, Frankenstein and more.
  • Writing Activities
  • Archetypal Activities

 

**new content added each month

**video trainings

**limited time bonuses