Students respond to a book they have read by thinking symbolically to create a business card for one of the characters.
In this alternative to the traditional book report, students respond to a play they have read by creating a resume for one of its characters.
Students must think critically to create comic strips highlighting six important scenes from a book they have read.
In this alternative to the traditional book report, students create book trailers using Microsoft Photo Story 3, a free downloadable software program for digital storytelling.
Students explore familiar literary characters, usually first encountered as adults, but whose childhood stories are only told later. Students then create childhoods for adult characters from books of their choice.
Students explore book covers of a variety of books then create a new cover for a book they have read.
Comic frames are traditionally used to illustrate a story in a short, concise format. In this lesson, students use a six-paneled comic strip frame to create a story map, summarizing a book or story that they've read. Each panel retells a particular detail or explains a literary element (such as setting or character) from the story.
In this alternative to the traditional book report, students report on their novel choices using Facebook-like pages.
In this alternative book report, students identify the elements of fiction in books they have read by creating glogs, interactive multimedia posters, and then share their glogs.
Students select a book to read based only on its cover art. After reading the book, they use an interactive tool to create a new cover for it.
Students make bookmarks on computers and share their ideas with other readers at their school, while practicing summarizing, recognizing symbols, and writing reviews-all for an authentic audience.
Students identify the elements of fiction in a book they have read and share summaries of them by writing and illustrating their own mini-book.
Students write resumes for historical fiction characters. They first explore help wanted ads to see what employers want, and then draft resumes for the characters they've chosen.
Students work in groups to create annotated book reviews with links to topics of interest related to their book.
Students utilize their reading and writing skills as they think critically in order to sort books in multiple ways.
Students become novice lexicographers as they explore recent new entries to the dictionary, learn the process of writing entries for the Oxford English Dictionary, and write a new entry themselves.
Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.
Though teachers usually caution students against using sentence fragments, Edgar Schuster's work demonstrates that professional writers often use fragments effectively. This lesson helps students understand that there are reasons that they can and should use sentence fragments to become effective writers.
During interactive read-aloud sessions, students identify how an author conveys mathematical information about animals' sizes and abilities. They then conduct research projects focusing on the same mathematical concepts.
As a culminating activity for "Slaughterhouse-Five", students make a compilation album (a CD with 6-8 tracks) that reflects their analysis, understanding, and reaction to the ideas in the novel "Slaughterhouse-Five".