Favorite Bell Ringer Questions and Exit Tickets

As we start to think about going back to school, it is also time to think about the routines we want to establish in our English and ELA classrooms. And those routines should definitely include a regular routine for warm ups and closures. So this week, I have brought together five high school and middle school teachers to share their favorite bell ringer questions or exit tickets.

For more on developing your routines, be sure to check out Class Routines: Decide Once on Bell Ringer Activities.

5 English teachers share their favorite warm ups and exit tickets for middle and high school English classes.

Five English Teachers Share their Favorite Bell Ringers and Exit Tickets

One Word on Exit Tickets

One of my favorite ways to conclude a lesson is by asking students to choose one word. You can have students do this with or without an explanation.

Depending on your goal, you can literally have students write one word on a sticky note or an index card or on an exit slip, or you can have students write their one word and an explanation.

If you just want to get a sense for the overall understanding in your class, you could ask students to write one word about how they feel about the new learning or the text they are reading on a sticky note and have them put it on the back of the door as they leave.

But you can also use the One Word Exit Ticket as a super quick formative assessment. I used this last spring in my English 11 class as we were reading Macbeth. It gave me a sense of the students’ understanding of the text and the characters.

For example, I gave the prompt: Give me one word to describe Macbeth or Lady Macbeth at the end of Act 1 and explain your choice. The words students chose were diverse and well reasoned through their explanations.

These can work equally as well as bell ringers.

Journal Writing Prompts

Lesa from SmithTeaches9to12 adores using writing prompts to start her classes. From the mundane to the meaningful with a side of ridiculous on occasion too, the prompts shared in class are designed for a multitude of purposes.

Some prompts are creative – does Mother Earth get dizzy? These get students thinking outside the box for the lesson that’s happening that day.

Some prompts are check-ins – how do you get back up rather than give up?

Some are the start of something more – describe your best day – historical or hypothetical. This usually leads into a lesson on setting or using descriptive language or even exploring character in a short story or novel.

There are so many ways to use journal prompts that don’t require you to read them all or to make any of them!

So display a prompt. Get students to take out a notebook dedicated to journal writing for the class and a pen/pencil. And have them write for about 5 minutes (sometimes less, sometimes more).

Lesa uses music as her timer! Here’s a classic list from Spotify she created to use with her classes that features songs of different durations depending on the prompts. You can easily create your own with input from students or go music-free too!

Check out more details about the how and why of journal writing in Lesa’s post on her website.
And if you’re looking to switch up your classes this year to incorporate more journal writing as bell ringers, grab this set of 190 quick-write journal prompts for high school students.

Daily Skill Review

Do your students struggle to retain skills and concepts previously taught? Carolyn from Middle School Cafe understands that once a concept has been taught and assessed, if not used, students struggle to hold on to the information. For this reason, she uses Daily ELA Spiral Review.

Warm-ups serve as an excellent review method, reinforcing previously taught concepts and enhancing retention. The consistent use of daily ELA warm-ups ensures that students have multiple opportunities to revisit and practice essential skills. This spiral review approach emphasizes vocabulary, writing and editing skills, and even provides opportunities for reflection.

By emphasizing vocabulary, students reinforce their understanding and usage of new words, aiding in better comprehension and more effective communication. Writing warm-ups focus on structure, clarity, and creativity, encouraging students to express their thoughts effectively. Editing practice allows students to hone their language skills in a practical, hands-on way, improving their ability to identify and correct errors. Reflection activities foster self-awareness and critical evaluation of their own learning process.

These daily reviews maintain a steady reinforcement of knowledge without requiring extra preparation from teachers. Overall, daily ELA warm-ups are an effective strategy to keep skills sharp, support continuous learning, and help students retain and apply what they have learned throughout the year.sharp, support continuous learning, and help students retain and apply what they have learned throughout the year.
Click here for a free two week sample of Carolyn’s Daily ELA Warm Ups.

Sticky Sentence Exit Tickets

Krista from @whimsyandrigor is always looking for engaging ways to check student understanding and encourage reflection. Here’s a twist on the classic exit ticket that she has found particularly effective with middle schoolers: the “Sticky Sentence” technique.

Instead of using Post-it notes for simple responses, challenge students to craft a single sentence that encapsulates the day’s key learning. But here’s the catch – each word of their sentence must be written on a separate Post-it note.

Here’s how it works:

1. At the end of class, give each student a stack of small Post-it notes.

2. Instruct them to write one sentence that reflects what they learned or found most interesting about the day’s lesson. Each word goes on its own Post-it.

3. Students then stick their sentence to a designated wall or board in the correct order.

This strategy encourages concise thinking because students must distill their learning into one clear, impactful sentence.

It is also a great way to promote reflection because the physical act of writing each word individually slows down the process, allowing for deeper consideration.

To make this more collaborative, Krista has students work together to create one sentence that uses words from multiple students. Students work together to connect their individual words into longer, more complex sentences that encapsulate the day’s learning.

To take it even further, teachers can use this activity as a review by having students remix the sentences to create new sentences that still accurately review the material.
This “Sticky Sentence” exit ticket not only serves as a quick assessment tool but also turns reflection into a hands-on, visually appealing activity. It’s a great way to end class on an engaging note while reinforcing key language arts concepts. Want more engaging and effective teaching tricks from Krista? Just click here!

Visual Exit Tickets

Katie from Mochas and Markbooks loves giving her ELA students a visual task as an exit ticket to switch things up from the written content they’ve been working on throughout class, so character memes are always a fun way to show what they know about the literary worlds they’ve been exploring.

The task is fairly simple, students either find a picture in a magazine or online, or draw their own, representing a character from a text currently being studied in class. Then they use a common “meme phrase” to relate to something that has happened in the story, or relate to the character in some way.

Students can hand these in on their way out of class like an exit ticket, and then you can begin the next class with either a gallery walk where students can walk around and explain their memes, or a more informal discussion of the memes to start class.
If you would like to use the template that Katie uses, grab this freebie here, or you can check out the End of the Year ELA Review Activities here which contains a character meme template and 14 other activities!

Winning with Bell Ringers and Exit Tickets for High School English

I can’t wait to try a few of these out. I am so grateful to my on-line English teacher friends for sharing these amazing ideas. Be sure to include a few in your plans this fall.