Students write authentic newspaper stories, including learning about various aspects of newspapers, such as writing an article, online articles, newspaper reading habits, and layout and design techniques.
This lesson teaches intermediate students to "use the experts" to learn how to revise to create sharp, sensory-rich experiences for their readers.
Students publish their work in an electronic portfolio, which enables them to respond to each other's content online.
Graphic organizers assist the development of comparative vocabulary and generate discussions of analogy and metaphor in art as students go on a real or virtual tour of an art gallery.
After reading a short story, students use freewriting as a catalyst for a literary analysis essay.
Using books by Ezra Jack Keats as inspiration, students explore problems and solutions through read-alouds, discussion, and an interactive bulletin board.
Students take their ideas from the classroom page to the community pavement when they participate in a service-learning project based on their multimedia presentations.
By critically analyzing popular television programs, students develop an awareness of the messages that are portrayed through the media.
Students explore the idea of crossing boundaries through bilingual, spoken-word poetry, culminating in a poetry slam at school or in the community.
This tool allows students to complete crossword puzzles on a variety of grade-appropriate topics, and also create and print their own crossword puzzles.
A little understanding can go a long way. After learning about difficulties that Palestinian youths face, students will write a letter to an official discussing these issues.
Students learn about personification by reading and discussing poems and then brainstorm nouns and verbs to create personification in their own poems.
This lesson introduces the concept of cause and effect with Trinka Hakes Noble's books about Jimmy and his boa constrictor. Each lesson begins with the teacher reading a new story about Jimmy and his boa and the chaos they bring to each place they visit. Class discussions about each event and its cause are followed by tasks for the students to help illustrate understanding of the concept. Students create cause-and-effect pictures, puzzles, and flow charts as they explore the genre. As a culminating activity, students write their own book with causes and effects, which are assessed with a rubric.
Students demonstrate comprehension by responding to open-ended questions based on the Newbery Honor book "Mr. Popper's Penguins", and then draw from the text and their personal experiences to create journals.
Students use the elements of persuasion for a specific audience to demonstrate their understanding of Richard WrightŐs accessible and engaging coming-of-age novel, "Rite of Passage.
Students explore the genre of posters, review informational writing and visual design, and then design poster presentations to share in class or at a school-wide fair.
In this series of four lessons, students will explore key elements of design in "Little Blue and Little Yellow" to learn about setting, character relationships, and plot.
Using "The Grapes of Wrath" as a backdrop, students conduct research on issues that the novel addresses, publishing their findings in a multigenre museum exhibit.
Students read Raymond Carver's story "A Small, Good Thing," focusing on characterization in order to develop one of the static characters: the hit-and-run driver who causes ScottyŐs death: more fully.
Lights, camera, action, and a bit of mystery! In this lesson, students use mystery props in a skit bag to create and perform in short, impromptu skits.