Students reflect on their school year, creating a digital scrapbook consisting of images and text to present to their school community.
Students analyze the Gwendolyn BrooksŐ poem ŇWe Real CoolÓ and then write about how the characterŐs pool hall days might influence who the character becomes fifty years in the future.
Students work on a guided characterization project, using a graphic map to illustrate the ways a character from a book series grows and evolves over the course of the story.
This lesson provides ideas for celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by encouraging students to explore the connections between Dr. King and themselves through journaling and inquiry-based research.
Using The Giver, students discuss the importance recorded history. This provides context for descriptive writing of studentsŐ own history in a lesson that integrates personal writing, research, and literary response.
Students prepare an already published scholarly article for presentation, with an emphasis on identification of the author's thesis and argument structure.
This lesson teaches students how to use old verbs in a new way, thus creating new and fresh descriptive phrases.
Students read and discuss literature about intolerance and diversity. They work with a partner to write two-voice poems that illustrate situations of intolerance at their school and suggest a step toward acceptance.
Students use critical literacy skills to understand the concept of perspective and to then create a diary for an animal they research with a partner.
Students wont miss a beat in this musical lesson that combines listening with personal response on a postcard.
After analyzing "Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia" by Carmen Lomas Garza, students create a class book with artwork and information about their ancestry, traditions, and recipes, followed by a potluck lunch.
This assignment will go viral with students as they think about the meanings of words and images in public service announcements from YouTube before creating a PSA of their own.
The Mystery Cube helps students identify and summarize story elements in this popular genre. It can be used as a postreading or prewriting activity.
By exploring myths and truths surrounding Abraham LincolnŐs Gettysburg Address, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding this famous speech from the Civil War era.
In this lesson, students practice a way to communicate without words by using a glyph. They create a name card using information about themselves. Students also interpret glyphs made by others.
Students demonstrate their letter/sound knowledge by working with name cards and sharing observations about their classmatesŐ names, giving teachers an opportunity to assess knowledge in a meaningful context.
Students name unnamed chapters in a novel they are reading. They discuss possible chapter names, considering accuracy, word choice, and connotation, before settling on a choice.
Students explore naming conventions in digital and non-digital settings then choose and explain specific names and profiles to represent themselves online.
Using Beloved as a model of a work with multiple narrative perspectives, students use a visualizing activity and close reading to consider ways in which subjective values shape contradictory representations.
Students will develop their summarizing skills while learning about local history. They will learn to consider audience while selecting topics, conducting research and interviews, and writing historical markers for their town.