This lesson uses comic strip frames to define plot and reinforce the structure that underlies a narrative. Students finish by writing their own original narratives.
The Compare & Contrast Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for different kinds of comparison essays.
Students discuss and compare differing versions of Little Red Riding Hood and other tales about wolves in cumulative read-aloud sessions and text set explorations.
In this lesson, students analyze similarities and differences among depictions of slavery in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Frederick Douglass' "Narrative", and nineteenth century photographs of slaves. Students formulate their analysis of the role of art and fiction, as they attempt to reliably reflect social ills, in a final essay.
The Comparison and Contrast Guide outlines the characteristics of the genre and provides direct instruction on the methods of organizing, gathering ideas, and writing comparison and contrast essays.
This unit introduces students to a variety of poetic forms and elements, as they compile their own collections of poetry.
Students identify, explore and apply the elements of circle plot structures to their own stories by using graphic organizers, reading and writing stories, and using checklists to assess their work.
In this unit, students become active archivists, gathering photos, artifacts, and stories for a museum exhibit that highlights one decade in their school's history.
Students explore the connotations of the colors associated with the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."
Using Construct-a-Word, students learn letter-sound correspondence by combining a beginning letter or blend to a word ending to create words.
Students explore the menu genre by analyzing existing menus from local restaurants. They review adjectives and descriptive writing and then work in groups to create their own custom menus.
This lesson takes advantage of students' interest in music and audio sharing. Students investigate multiple perspectives in the music downloading debate and develop a persuasive argument for a classroom debate.
Students investigate how and why copyright law has changed over time, and apply this information to recent copyright issues, creating persuasive arguments based on the perspective of a particular group.
Students compare and analyze novels and the movies adapted from them. They design new DVD covers and a related insert for the movies, reflecting their response to the movie version.
What do cowboy hats have to do with fairy tales? Two traditional fairy tales and their Texas-based counterparts set the stage for five different ways to respond to text.
Students view examples of blogs, learn the basic elements of blog creation, and then create a blog from the perspective of a fictional character.
Students create poetry collections with the theme of ńgetting to know each other.î They study and then write a variety of forms of poetry to include in their collections.
Students interview family members, and then create graphic family timelines based on important and memorable family events.
Students explore the motivation behind charactersŐ actions in "To Kill A Mockingbird" by creating psychological profiles for characters from the novel.
This series of activities is designed to teach research strategies. Students use KWL charts to guide their inquiry and publish their results in a collaborative question and answer book.