Traci Gardner

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Recurring Lesson

A Daily DEAR Program: Drop Everything, and Read!

The teacher shouts, "Drop Everything and Read!" and students settle into their seats to read books they've selected. This independent reading program helps students build a lifelong reading habit.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words: From Image to Detailed Narrative

The old cliche, "A picture is worth a thousand words" is put to the test when students write their own narrative interpretations of events shown in an image.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Action Is Character: Exploring Character Traits with Adjectives

Students must "become" a character in a novel in order to describe themselves and other characters using powerful adjectives.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Analyzing the Stylistic Choices of Political Cartoonists

Students explore and analyze the techniques that political (or editorial) cartoonists use and draw conclusions about why the cartoonists choose those techniques to communicate their messages.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

And I Quote: A Punctuation Proofreading Minilesson

Students review the basic conventions for using quotations from literature or references from a research project, focusing on accurate punctuation and page layout, then apply the conventions to their texts.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Assessing Cultural Relevance: Exploring Personal Connections to a Text

As a class, students evaluate a nonfiction or realistic fiction text for its cultural relevance to themselves personally and as a group.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization

After exploring Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, students create their own audio dramatization of a text they have read.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Audio Listening Practices: Exploring Personal Experiences with Audio Texts

Students keep a daily diary that records how and when they listen to audio texts, then analyze the details and compare their results to published reports on American radio listeners.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Authentic Persuasive Writing to Promote Summer Reading

Turn summer reading lists from a teacher-centered requirement to a student-driven exploration by asking students to create brochures and flyers that suggest books to explore during the summer months.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Avalanche, Aztek, or Bravada? A Connotation Minilesson

Students examine familiar car names for underlying connotations then proceed through a series of steps, increasing their control over language, until they select words with powerful connotations in their own writing.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Avoiding Sexist Language by Using Gender-Fair Pronouns

Students engage in a brief writing assignment that concretely illustrates how language and gender stereotyping interact causally.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Battling for Liberty: Tecumseh’s and Patrick Henry’s Language of Resistance

Students study Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech and the ways Native Americans also resisted oppression through rhetoric and action.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Become a Character: Adjectives, Character Traits, and Perspective

Students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using lists of accurate, powerful adjectives.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Recurring Lesson

Book Clubs: Reading for Fun

This lesson describes how small groups of students can plan meetings to discuss what they've read in a "just for fun" book club they've organized—and that they control.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Book Report Alternative: A Character’s Letter to the Editor

Students write a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper from a selected fictional character’s perspective, focusing on a specific issue or situation explored in the novel.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Book Report Alternative: Character and Author Business Cards

Students respond to a book they have read by thinking symbolically to create a business card for one of the characters.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Book Report Alternative: Comic Strips and Cartoon Squares

Students must think critically to create comic strips highlighting six important scenes from a book they have read.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Book Report Alternative: Creating Careers for Characters

Students select a job listing for a character in a book they have read, then create a resume and application letter for that character.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Book Report Alternative: Summary, Symbol, and Analysis in Bookmarks

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.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Bright Morning: Exploring Character Development in Fiction

Students work as a class to explore a character in a book they have read by identifying traits and finding textual references to support their choices.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Campaigning for Fair Use: Public Service Announcements on Copyright Awareness

Students explore a range of resources on fair use and copyright then design their own audio public service announcements (PSAs), to be broadcast over the school’s public address system.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Character Clash: A Minilesson on Paragraphing and Dialogue

Students learn about paragraphing conventions in dialogue by revising their own writing.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Charlotte is Wise, Patient, and Caring: Adjectives and Character Traits

Students find examples of adjectives in a shared reading. Then students "become" major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using powerful adjectives.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Childhood Remembrances: Life and Art Intersect in Nikki Giovanni’s “Nikki-Rosa”

Students explore what Carol Jago calls the place “where life and art intersect” by reading Nikki Giovanni’s poem, “Nikki-Rosa,” and then writing about childhood memories of their own.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Choosing Clear and Varied Dialogue Tags: A Minilesson

In this minilesson, students explore the use of dialogue tags such as “he said” or “she answered” in picture books and novels, discussing their purpose, form, and style.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Comic Makeovers: Examining Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Media

Students explore stereotypes in the media and representations of race, class, ethnicity, and gender by analyzing comics over a two-week period and then re-envisioning them with a "comic character makeover."

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Composing Cinquain Poems with Basic Parts of Speech

Reinforce student understanding of parts of speech through the analysis of sample cinquain poems followed by the creation of original cinquains.

 

Grades   1 – 2  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Composing Cinquain Poems: A Quick-Writing Activity

Students use themed graphic organizers to compose cinquain poems on topics common in the early elementary classroom.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Cooking Up Descriptive Language: Designing Restaurant Menus

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.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Recurring Lesson

Daily Book Boosts

Book Boosts—one-minute raves at the end of independent reading time—are easy ways to suggest new titles to students, and they act as a way for students to have something to think about as they read.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Defining Literacy in a Digital World

Through listing and observation, students identify the many texts that they read and compose—including books and magazines, television shows, movies, audio broadcasts, hypertexts, and animations.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Designing Effective Poster Presentations

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.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Developing Reading Plans to Support Independent Reading

Students analyze their past readings and use that knowledge to create reading plans for the future.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Discovering Poetic Form and Structure Using Concrete Poems

This lesson uses concrete poems to explore the connection between a poem's layout and its meaning. While appropriate any time of year, the lesson is especially topical near Columbus Day.

 

Grades   K – 2  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Dr. Seuss’s Sound Words: Playing with Phonics and Spelling

Boom! Br-r-ring! Cluck! Moo!—Everywhere you turn, you find exciting sounds. Students use these sounds to write their own poems based on Dr. Seuss's Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You?

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Draft Letters: Improving Student Writing through Critical Thinking

Draft letters ask students to think critically about their writing on a specific assignment before submitting their work to a reader. This lesson explains and provides models for the strategy.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Every Punctuation Mark Matters: A Minilesson on Semicolons

Students analyze stylistic choices and grammar use in authentic writing, focusing on the use of the semicolon in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Exploring Audience and Purpose with a Single Issue

Students explore the concepts of audience and purpose by focusing on an issue that divided Americans in 1925, the debate of evolution versus creationism raised by the Scopes Monkey Trial.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

From Dr. Seuss to Jonathan Swift: Exploring the History behind the Satire

Use Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book as an accessible introduction to satire. Reading, discussing, and researching this picture book paves the way for a deeper understanding of Gulliver's Travels.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Ghosts and Fear in Language Arts: Exploring the Ways Writers Scare Readers

Students analyze scary stories to 'break the code" of horror writing and use what they learn to write scary stories of their own.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

How Big Are Martin’s Big Words? Thinking Big about the Future

Inspired by the book Martin’s Big Words, students explore information on Dr. King to think about his "big" words, then they write about their own "big" words and dreams.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Inquiry on the Internet: Evaluating Web Pages for a Class Collection

Students use Internet search engines and Web analysis checklists to evaluate online resources then write annotations that explain how and why the resources will be valuable to the class.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Inside or Outside? A Minilesson on Quotation Marks and More

Students often question whether a punctuation mark goes inside or outside the quotation marks, especially when writing dialogue. This lesson helps students identify the conventions and apply them to their text.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Investigating Names to Explore Personal History and Cultural Traditions

Students investigate the meanings and origins of their names in order to establish their own personal histories and to explore the cultural significance of naming traditions.

 

Grades   K – 2  |  Lesson Plan  |  Recurring Lesson

Involving Students and Families in Ongoing Reflection and Assessment

Students begin by writing a sentence or two each week and progress to daily reflections and records of their school activity. Families respond to these student reflections, which become the basis for discussion among family, teacher, and students.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Literary Parodies: Exploring a Writer’s Style through Imitation

This lesson asks students to analyze the features of a poet’s work then create their own poems based on the original model.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Many Years Later: Responding to Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool”

Students analyze the Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “We Real Cool” and then write about how the character’s pool hall days might influence who the character becomes fifty years in the future.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Myth and Truth: Independence Day

By exploring myths and truths surrounding Independence Day, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding the beginning of the Revolutionary War and the Independence Day holiday.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Myth and Truth: The Gettysburg Address

By exploring myths and truths surrounding Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding this famous speech from the Civil War era.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Myth and Truth: The “First Thanksgiving”

By exploring myths surrounding the Wampanoag, the pilgrims, and the "First Thanksgiving," this lesson asks students to think critically about commonly believed myths regarding the Wampanoag Indians in colonial America.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Name That Chapter! Discussing Summary and Interpretation Using Chapter Titles

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.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Naming in a Digital World: Creating a Safe Persona on the Internet

Students explore naming conventions in digital and non-digital settings then choose and explain specific names and profiles to represent themselves online.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Novel News: Broadcast Coverage of Character, Conflict, Resolution, and Setting

This twist on readers theater has students prepare original news programs based on incidents in a recent reading, as they explore standard literary elements of character, conflict, resolution, and setting.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Onomatopoeia: A Figurative Language Minilesson

Clang, clash, or tinkle? Students explore the use of onomatopoeia in Edgar Allan Poe's “The Bells” before choosing their own sound words in response to specific sounds.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Paying Attention to Technology: Exploring a Fictional Technology

Students complete a short survey to establish their beliefs about technology. They compare their opinions to the ideas in a novel that depicts technology (such as 1984 or Fahrenheit 451).

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Paying Attention to Technology: Reviewing a Technology

Students read and analyze technology reviews to establish the characteristics of the genre. They then compose their own reviews on a technology of their choice.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Paying Attention to Technology: Writing Technology Autobiographies

This lesson plan asks students to pay attention to the technologies they use. They graphically map their interactions with technology and compose narratives of their most significant interactions with technology.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

Peer Review: Narrative

This minilesson guides student in using the PQP technique—Praise–Question–Polish—to offer concrete and useful peer review feedback.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Persuading an Audience: Writing Effective Letters to the Editor

Students use persuasive writing and an understanding of the characteristics of letters to the editor to compose effective letters to the editor on topics of interest to them.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Persuading Readers with Endorsement Letters

Students explore the genre of commercial endorsements, establishing characteristics and requirements for the genre. Each student then composes an endorsement of a product, service, company, or industry.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Picture Books as Framing Texts: Research Paper Strategies for Struggling Writers

Students use picture books as framing texts for research, freeing them from the language of encyclopedia sources and allowing them to focus their attention on the content of their papers.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Plot Structure: A Literary Elements Mini-Lesson

Students learn that the plot structure described by Freytag's Pyramid is actually quite familiar as they diagram the plots of a familiar story, a television show, and a narrative poem.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Reading and Analyzing Multigenre Texts

Students develop a definition of multigenre texts by exploring multigenre picture books. They brainstorm what it takes to read these texts successfully and discuss strategies needed to comprehend the texts.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Minilesson

She Did What? Revising for Connotation

Did she walk, skip, amble, dance? In this minilesson, students explore connotation by acting out and revising the simple sentence "She walked into the room."

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Spend a Day in My Shoes: Exploring the Role of Perspective in Narrative

In this lesson, students imagine spending a day in someone else's shoes. After reviewing the characteristics of narrative writing, they then write narratives from that person's point of view.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Star-Crossed Lovers Online: Romeo and Juliet for a Digital Age

Explore the modern significance of an older text, such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, by asking students to create their own modern interpretation of specific events from the drama.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Style: Defining and Exploring an Author’s Stylistic Choices

Students find examples of specific stylistic devices in sample literary passages then search for additional examples and explore the reasons for the stylistic choices that the author has made.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Style: Translating Stylistic Choices from Hawthorne to Hemingway and Back Again

After exploring the styles of two authors, students translate passages from one author into the style of another. They then translate fables into the style of one of the authors.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Teaching the Epic through Ghost Stories

In this lesson, students connect to the oral tradition of epic storytellers by sharing their own oral tales of ghosts and goblins and monsters.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Unit

Tracking the Ways Writers Develop Heroes and Villains

Everyone knows that Star Wars character Darth Vader is a villain. This lesson asks students to explore how they know such things about heroes and villains they encounter in texts.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Unlocking the Underlying Symbolism and Themes of a Dramatic Work

This lesson plan invites students to consider characters from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Students explore a selected character and write poems about objects associated with that character.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Recurring Lesson

Webcams in the Classroom: Animal Inquiry and Observation

Students observe animals using one of the many webcams broadcasting from zoos and aquariums around the United States and the world, with a focus on observation, discussion, questioning, and research.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Recurring Lesson

Weekly Writer’s Blogs: Building a Reflective Community of Support

Students explore the conventions of blog writing while using it to self-reflect on their writing and communicate with classmates about each other's reflections.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Writing about Writing: An Extended Metaphor Assignment

After discussing the poem “The Writer” by Richard Wilbur, students analyze their own writing habits and create an extended metaphor describing themselves as writers.

 

Grades   6 – 12  |  Strategy Guide

Developing Persuasive Writing Strategies

This strategy guide describes the techniques used in effective persuasive writing and shares activities you can use to help students understand and use persuasion in their writing and critical thinking.

 

Grades   6 – 12  |  Strategy Guide

Online Safety

This Strategy Guide describes the strategies involved in ensuring that students understand how to be safe when they participate in online discussion and join social networks.

 

Grades   6 – 12  |  Strategy Guide

Teaching With Blogs

This Strategy Guide describes the processes involved in composing blogs in the classroom, the process of writing regular posts, or entries, that are published online.

 

Grades   6 – 12  |  Strategy Guide

Teaching With Podcasts

This Strategy Guide describes the processes involved in composing and producing audio files that are published online as podcasts.

 

Grades   K – 8  |  Strategy Guide

Tracking and Supporting Student Learning with Kidwatching

In this strategy guide, you’ll learn how to use kidwatching to track and support student learning. Teachers observe and take notes on students’ understanding of skills and concepts and then use the observations to determine effective strategies for future instruction.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Professional Library  |  Book

Designing Writing Assignments

Traci Gardner offers practical tips, starting points, and a companion website to help secondary and college teachers design effective writing assignments.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Activity & Project

Creating a Safe Online Profile

After exploring online names, teens choose a screen name or e-mail address for themselves and decide what is a safe online profile.

 

Grades   K – 2  |  Activity & Project

Let’s Go on a Reading Hunt!

In this activity, children go on a hunt for places where they can read and enjoy books: on a family road trip, at the pool, at the doctor’s office.

 

Grades   K – 2  |  Activity & Project

Note Writing at a Message Center

In this activity, children write short everyday notes, to remind, plan, request, or compliment others.

 

Grades   K – 2  |  Activity & Project

Reading Signs and Labels

These activities will have children reading signs, logos, brand names, and other words all over their home and community.

 

Grades   K – 2  |  Activity & Project

Taking a Sound Hike

Whether taking a sound hike at the mall, a near-by park, or on a family trip, ask children to notice the sounds they hear and then use sound words as they write their own books.

 

Grades   9 – 12  |  Activity & Project

Telling Good from Bad in Movies and Television

In this activity, you can discuss with teens how they can tell the “good” characters from the “bad” ones by watching for clues that the movie makers have left.

 

Grades   K – 2  |  Activity & Project

Watching a Garden Grow

When you plant a garden, involve children in the process by writing down questions and observations on the garden’s growth in a garden journal.

 

Grades   6 – 12  |  Tip & How-To

How to Be Safe Online

By teaching teens some basic guidelines about online safety, you can help make sure the time they spend online is safe.

 

Grades   6 – 12  |  Tip & How-To

How to Record Podcasts

Creating a podcast gives teens a chance to communicate with others. The skills teens learn in this process can help them become better writers and public speakers.

 

Grades   6 – 12  |  Tip & How-To

How to Start a Blog

Composing a blog entry gives teens practice in organizing and presenting their ideas effectively and a chance to communicate with their readers.