Boars and Baseball: Making Connections

Lesson Plans

Student Interactives

Calendar Activities

Printouts

Strategy Guides

Printouts

 

LESSON PLANS

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Literature as a Catalyst for Social Action: Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges

Students are invited to confront and discuss issues of injustice and intolerance in response to reading a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts.

 

Grades   6 – 8  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Entering History: Nikki Giovanni and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nikki Giovanni’s poem “The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.” is paired with Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, taking students on a quest through time to the Civil Rights movement.

 

Grades   4 – 6  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Guided Comprehension: Making Connections Using a Double-Entry Journal

Based on the Guided Comprehension Model by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson helps students learn three types of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world) using a double-entry journal.

 

Grades   3 – 5  |  Lesson Plan  |  Standard Lesson

Creating Family Timelines: Graphing Family Memories and Significant Events

Students interview family members, and then create graphic family timelines based on important and memorable family events.

 

back to top

 

STUDENT INTERACTIVES

Grades   3 – 12  |  Student Interactive  |  Organizing & Summarizing

Compare & Contrast Map

The Compare & Contrast Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for different kinds of comparison essays.

 

Grades   K – 12  |  Student Interactive  |  Organizing & Summarizing

Venn Diagram

This interactive tool allows students to create Venn diagrams that contain two or three overlapping circles, enabling them to organize their information logically.

 

back to top

 

CALENDAR ACTIVITIES

Grades   7 – 12  |  Calendar Activity  |  January 31

Jackie Robinson was born on this day in 1919.

Students read messages sent to the White House from Jackie Robinson and discuss his role as an athlete and a civil rights activist, as well as the role of athletes in society.

 

Grades   2 – 12  |  Calendar Activity  |  February 10

The Chinese New Year starts today.

Today is the first day of the New Year on the Chinese lunar calendar.

 

Grades   5 – 12  |  Calendar Activity  |  May 19

Malcolm X was born in Nebraska in 1925.

Students write about the origin of their name and explore the names that Malcolm X used during this life.

 

Grades   3 – 12  |  Calendar Activity  |  January 1

Annie Moore becomes the first immigrant to enter Ellis Island in 1892.

Students explore online resources about Ellis Island, interview an immigrant in the area, and publish their stories.

 

back to top

 

PRINTOUTS

Grades   3 – 8  |  Printout  |  Graphic Organizer

Connection Stems

Connection Stems give students the language (and a reminder) to support their understanding by tying new learning to what they know about themselves and their world.

 

Grades   3 – 8  |  Printout  |  Graphic Organizer

Making Connections

Using this printout, students make personal associations to a text by finding and describing text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections.

 

Grades   3 – 8  |  Printout  |  Graphic Organizer

Double-Entry Journal

This printout helps students record ideas and situations from texts in one column, and their reactions in the second, thus making a connection between the text and themselves, another text, or the world.

 

Grades   3 – 8  |  Printout  |  Graphic Organizer

Connection Web

Students use this printout to expand on connections they have made to a text and use those details to write essays or create projects about the text.

 

back to top

 

STRATEGY GUIDES

Grades   6 – 12  |  Strategy Guide

Reading with Purpose in the Content Areas

In this strategy guide, you’ll learn how to organize students and instruction to establish a sense of purpose for reading authentic texts in the content areas.

 

Grades   3 – 8  |  Strategy Guide

Making Connections

In this strategy guide, you’ll learn to model how students can make three different kinds of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world). Students then use this knowledge to find their own personal connections to a text.

 

back to top

 

PRINTOUTS

Grades   9 – 12  |  Printout  |  Learning New Skills

Possible Interview Questions

Young adults can use this printout to interview a friend, family member, or acquaintance to learn more about the interviewee’s life.

 

back to top