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Lesson Plan Index
Sort ReadWriteThink Lessons by Title, Grade, or Date by clicking on the appropriate header. You may also use the Lesson Plan Selector above.
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| TITLE | ABSTRACT | GRADE | DATE |
“America the Beautiful”: Using Music and Art to Develop Vocabulary |
In this lesson, students learn the song “America the Beautiful” and the meanings of its words through shared reading and by using the words in a variety of ways. They then use drawings, descriptive language, and photographs to create a mural in the shape of the United States. This lesson could be included in the study of any patriotic holiday or event. | 3-5 | 11/19/08 |
3, 2, 1...Blast Off! Vocabulary Instruction Using a Virtual Trip to the Moon |
Capture the qualities of field-trip learning in the classroom. Working independently and in groups students learn vocabulary about the moon; however, the activities can be applied to any content area topic. | K-2 | 11/21/08 |
A Bad Case of Bullying: Using Literature Response Groups With Students |
In this lesson, students make personal connections to a humorous back-to-school story (A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon) by writing in their journals and discussing the story in literature response groups. Students also explore the central theme of bullying in the story. | 3-5 | 11/19/08 |
A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry |
Using familiar childhood stories, students will work together to create a poem that is “found” in the language presented in the picture books they read. Children will look in texts for writing that inspires them—looking for favorite words, phrases, and sentences. Working together, students will combine their words and phrases to create a class poem. When complete, the new piece will be shared as performance poetry. | K-2 | 6/11/08 |
A Biography Study: Using Role-Play to Explore Authors' Lives |
In this lesson, eleventh-grade students read biographies and explore websites of selected American authors. They collaborate in teams to design creative projects and role-play as the authors in a panel presentation. They then synthesize their knowledge into essays about their authors. | 9-12 | 11/21/08 |
A Case for Reading—Examining Challenged and Banned Books |
The purpose of this lesson is to inspire students to critically examine a book, which has been selected from the American Library Association Challenged/Banned Books list. The students will analyze the book and document their findings as they read. They will then write a persuasive piece, synthesizing their view about the book and what should be done with the book at their school. | 3-5 | 11/20/08 |
A Collaboration of Sites and Sounds: Using Wikis to Catalog Protest Songs |
The inherently collaborative nature of wikis—online writing spaces that allow users to freely access and edit content—provides educators with a powerful tool to teach collaborative writing and new media. In this lesson, students work in small groups to catalog protest songs in a class wiki. | 9-12 | 11/13/07 |
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 is much more than a just-sit-there-and-read experience—it's a program that helps students build the habit of lifelong reading for the love of it. | 3-5 | 11/20/08 |
A Directed Listening–Thinking Activity for The Tell-Tale Heart |
In this lesson, students participate in a Directed Listening–Thinking Activity (DLTA) to improve their listening comprehension and prediction skills. At the end of the lesson, students compose a written response to the story in the form of either an acrostic poem or comic strip. | 6-8 | 3/8/06 |
A Genre Study of Letters With The Jolly Postman |
In The Jolly Postman, a postman rides his bicycle delivering letters. To whom? Storybook and nursery rhyme characters! After reading The Jolly Postman, the students will learn the attributes of different types of mail. Then, the students will categorize the letters from the book, and finally their own mail. | 3-5 | 11/19/08 |
A Getting-Acquainted Activity Using My Teacher’s Secret Life |
The first days of school are filled with excitement and uncertainty. Here, in this kindergarten lesson, is a creative way for students to become familiar with the teacher and each other. The students will listen to Stephen Krensky's My Teacher's Secret Life, discuss the content, and make predictions about what everyone does when they are away from school. | K-2 | 12/2/05 |
A Harlem Renaissance Retrospective: Connecting Art, Music, Dance, and Poetry |
The Harlem Renaissance was a vibrant time that was characterized by innovations in art, literature, music, poetry, and dance. In this lesson, students work in collaborative groups to conduct Internet research and create a museum exhibit that highlights the work of selected artists, musicians, and poets of the Harlem Renaissance. | 9-12 | 12/9/08 |
A High-Interest Novel Helps Struggling Readers Confront Bullying in Schools |
Reading The Bully—a novel that should be especially appealing to struggling or reluctant readers—students will better understand the bully, the bullied, and the bystander. Students will use reading strategies such as literary analysis, T-charts, Readers Theatre, and reflective journals to help improve fluency and comprehension. | 9-12 | 11/19/08 |
A is for Apple: Building Letter-Recognition Fluency |
This lesson, which is most appropriate for kindergartners, provides multiple and varied opportunities for students to work with letters. Students play games, work online, and create an ABC book to become more fluent at letter recognition. | K-2 | 12/16/08 |
A Journal for Corduroy: Responding to Literature |
This lesson leads first-grade students to reflect on and respond to literature through journal writing. Students read books in the Corduroy series and interact with a stuffed bear to personalize their experiences. They also record their own adventures with Corduroy, share their stories with the class, and create a class book using the computer. | K-2 | 1/5/06 |
A Musical Prompt: Postcards From the Concert |
Using music as a writing prompt, students engage in the sentence-combining strategy to enhance their writing skills while creating postcards to share with family and friends. | 3-5 | 1/4/08 |
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 in this lesson. Distribute or show a picture that tells a story and then encourage students to brainstorm words and ideas about the image before writing a story that tells background on the image or extends details on what has happened. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
A Poem of Possibilities: Thinking about the Future |
Though teenagers are known for living in the “now,” they can easily be persuaded to ponder the future—especially when it’s their own future that they’re asked to imagine. Inspired by John Updike’s poem “Ex-Basketball Player,” students write poems or prose poems intended for a real audience—themselves, five years in the future. | 9-12 | 3/22/07 |
A Race With Grace: Sports Poetry in Motion |
Sports are not the only way for students to play! In this lesson, athletics, aesthetics, and poetry writing intersect in new ways as developing literacy learners experiment together with the forms of language. | 3-5 | 11/20/08 |
A Schema-Building Study With Patricia Polacco |
Help second- through fourth-grade students learn vocabulary and comprehension skills with Chicken Sunday and Rechenka’s Eggs by Patricia Polacco. Students study vocabulary in these books; they then deepen their understanding by making text-to-self and text-to-text connections and by using the vocabulary words to write about the characters and the author. | 3-5 | 8/16/06 |
A Significant Influence: Describing an Important Teacher in Your Life |
All of us have had a teacher who has made a profound difference in our lives, like Morrie in Tuesdays with Morrie or John Keating in Dead Poets Society. In this project, students write a tribute to such a teacher then publish their work in a class collection. Because college application essays often ask students to write about a significant influence, the lesson’s extensions include resources for writing more traditional, formal papers. | 9-12 | 11/12/08 |
A World of Readers: Libraries Around the World |
Where can students find the newest and most exciting reading material? Do residents of other countries have access to free public libraries? In this lesson, students visit library websites from diverse places, such as the Bahamas, Ireland, Kenya, and New Zealand, to discuss and compare library services throughout the world. | 6-8 | 3/30/07 |
A-Hunting We Will Go: Teaching Rhyming Through Musical Verse |
Rhyming is a natural skill when used in the context of singing songs. This lesson engages children by teaching rhyming concepts through music. Students gain an understanding of rhyming verse by creating new rhyming pairs for a familiar song and support these skills with an online interactive tool. | K-2 | 4/25/08 |
A–Z: Learning About the Alphabet Book Genre |
Using a collection of alphabet books and websites, this lesson for second graders builds and extends students’ knowledge of alphabet books. After the class generates a sample book together, students work in flexible groups to write their own alphabet books and share them with an audience. | K-2 | 12/16/08 |
ABC Bookmaking Builds Vocabulary in the Content Areas |
Are you looking for a fun, new way to teach content area vocabulary to your students? How about having them create ABC books? Bookmaking allows students to pinpoint for themselves the words they don't know and to use their own descriptions and illustrations to create an appropriate context for new vocabulary. | 6-8 | 7/21/04 |
Acquiring New Vocabulary Through Book Discussion Groups |
This lesson presents a whole-language approach to a social studies topic (i.e., the Civil War) using the trade book Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco. The approach combines reading comprehension with vocabulary development. The lesson can be extended, modified, and reused for other topics at the teacher's discretion. | 3-5 | 11/7/08 |
Acrostic Poems: All About Me and My Favorite Things |
Students write two free-verse acrostic poems about themselves. One uses the letters of their names to begin each line; the other uses a word from in their name poem for the letters beginning each line. Both poems are recopied, illustrated, and mounted for display. | K-2 | 11/19/08 |
Action ABC's: Learning Vocabulary With Verbs |
Having a well-developed vocabulary is important to help students become successful speakers, readers, and writers. This lesson guides students in exploring and learning about verbs, culminating in the creation of an Action Alphabet book. Each page includes a word and sentence describing an illustration of the verb. | K-2 | 11/18/08 |
Action Is Character: Exploring Character Traits with Adjectives |
In this activity, students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using Internet reference tools to compile lists of accurate, powerful adjectives. In class discussion, students support their lists with details from the novel. | 6-8 | 2/15/08 |
Active Reading Using The Enormous Watermelon |
Students engage in word recognition activities using character names and high-frequency words from the predictable texts of rebus versions of nursery rhymes online and the big book The Enormous Watermelon. Students also identify the main characters in these texts. | K-2 | 6/25/07 |
Adventures in Nonfiction: A Guided Inquiry Journey |
Students are guided through an informal exploration of nonfiction texts and child-oriented Web sites, learning browsing and skimming techniques for the purpose of gathering interesting information. They share learned facts with others, develop follow-up questions, and seek answers using Internet search engines in addition to print resources. | K-2 | 7/2/06 |
Alaska Native Stories: Using Narrative to Introduce Expository Text |
This lesson introduces students to comparing and contrasting fiction and nonfiction texts, and provides integration of literature into content area instruction. Students listen to a Yu'pik tale told by a Native person living in Alaska, reflect on it, and then use expository text to find facts about an animal in the Arctic. | 3-5 | 6/26/07 |
All About Alliteration: Responding to Literature Through a Poetry Link |
This lesson for third and fourth grade students uses a read aloud to teach about alliteration. It then has students brainstorm alliterative word lists using a variety or print and online resources. Students create and illustrate a poem using the poetry they have read as a framework for their writing. | 3-5 | 4/7/05 |
All About Our Town: Using Brochures to Teach Informational Writing |
In this lesson, students in grades 2–4 practice information gathering by exploring their town or city through interviews, photographs, and websites. They then write and revise paragraphs about their town and collaborate to create a visitor's brochure aimed at students who are new to the area. | 3-5 | 3/6/08 |
All's Well that Sells Well: A Creative Introduction to Shakespeare |
This pre-reading activity for Romeo and Juliet or any other play by William Shakespeare compares attending a performance at The Globe Theater to viewing a play on Broadway or seeing a movie at a local theater. It invokes critical inquiry and promotes engagement as students complete a project that contrasts life in the 1600s with products and conveniences available today. | 9-12 | 11/18/08 |
Alliteration All Around |
Beginning with Pamela Duncan Edwards' award-winning picture books, students identify the meaning of alliteration. They then put alliteration into practice by creating acrostic poems, tongue twisters, alphabet books, and number books. ReadWriteThink's Acrostic Poems interactive tool and Bruce Lansky's Giggle Poetry article add a technology component to the lesson. | 3-5 | 9/27/07 |
Alliteration in Headline Poems |
Students will be introduced to the term alliteration. They will be given examples of alliteration and asked to create their own examples of alliteration. As a project, students will be asked to create a headline poem consisting of 25 words that contain at least three examples of alliteration. | 6-8 | 2/23/06 |
Alphabetizing With Original Stories |
Students familiarize themselves with alphabetical order while writing original stories, which can then be showcased in the classroom. Following a brainstorming session, students are challenged with the task of making books solely composed of words in alphabetical order. | K-2 | 6/26/06 |
Alphabiography Project: Totally You |
Instead of writing their life stories in a linear fashion, students write their biographies from A to Z in this nontraditional autobiography activity, which was inspired by the book Totally Joe by James Howe. After the entry for each letter in their alphabiographies, students sum up the stories and vignettes by recording the life lessons they learned from the events. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
Alter Egos and More with Avi’s “Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?” |
Today’s elementary students bring many experiences with a variety of texts to the classroom: print, music, online literacies, technical reading and writing, and so on. This lesson plan uses students’ knowledge of these new literacies to introduce them to similar literacies of the past. | 3-5 | 11/20/08 |
An Exploration of Romanticism Through Art and Poetry |
In this lesson students are introduced to the characteristics of Romanticism through classroom discussion. They use visual literary skills to analyze a work of art and explore its Romantic characteristics. Students then deepen their understanding of Romanticism by analyzing a poem by Wordsworth using the TP-CASTT method and identifying the poem’s Romantic characteristics. As a culminating activity, students write an essay that demonstrates their understanding of Romanticism. | 9-12 | 11/18/08 |
An Exploration of Text Sets: Supporting All Readers |
Text sets focus on one concept, and include books, Web sites, maps, pamphlets, poetry, photographs, almanacs or encyclopedias. In this lesson, students create text set collections on topics of keen interest. They will explore the texts using three reading strategies. Research strategies from your own repertoire can extend the lesson. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
An Introduction to Beowulf: Language and Poetics |
While Beowulf is generally considered the earliest major work of English poetry, it is almost always taught in translation and its verse form and poetic techniques are often unfamiliar. This lesson provides an introduction to the language and poetics of the poem. | 9-12 | 11/20/08 |
Analyzing Advice as an Introduction to Shakespeare |
Popular culture provides an introduction to Shakespeare’s poetic devices in this lesson, which asks students to explore an excerpt from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
Analyzing and Comparing Medieval and Modern Ballads |
Invite students to explore the genre of ballads by reading medieval ballads to deduce their characteristics, acting out the ballads, comparing the medieval and modern ballads using Venn diagrams, and ultimately composing their own ballads. | 9-12 | 2/15/08 |
Analyzing Character Development in Three Short Stories About Women |
While reading about women who break from their traditional roles, students use comprehension tools to analyze similarities and differences among characters in three different short stories. This lesson fosters critical thinking and discussions about the influence of society’s expectations on a writer’s character development. | 9-12 | 7/1/08 |
Analyzing Character in Hamlet through Epitaphs |
Students compose epitaphs for characters in Hamlet, paying attention to how their words appeal to the senses, create imagery, suggest mood, and set tone. Using poster board, the students design gravestones that capture the essence of their characters and reflect the themes that support the personality and station in life of the characters they have chosen. The lesson can be easily adapted for other tragedies. | 9-12 | 11/19/08 |
Analyzing Grammar Pet Peeves |
This lesson uses a Dear Abby column to help students analyze a “grammar rant.” Through their analysis of Dear Abby’s grammar pet peeves, students become aware of the ranter’s language biases and gain an understanding of how race, class, and audience’s expectations help determine what is considered acceptable language use. | 9-12 | 12/8/08 |
Analyzing Symbolism, Plot, and Theme in Death and the Miser |
Encourage students to transfer the analytical skills that they use when reading literature to other modalities through an exploration of the underlying meaning and symbolism in the early Renaissance painting Death and the Miser by Hieronymous Bosch. | 9-12 | 4/20/05 |
Analyzing the Purpose and Meaning of Political Cartoons |
This lesson invites students in grades 9–12 to evaluate political cartoons for their meaning, message, and persuasiveness. | 9-12 | 11/30/06 |
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. | 9-12 | 11/20/08 |
And I Quote: A Punctuation Proofreading Mini-lesson |
This lesson plan reviews the basic conventions for using quotations from works of literature or references from a research project, focusing on accurate punctuation and page layout. After discussing the rules and analyzing their use in sample passages, students apply the conventions to their texts. | 9-12 | 11/18/08 |
And the Question Is... Evaluating the Validity of a Survey |
By analyzing survey questions and results, students exercise critical thinking skills needed for media literacy and research. | 9-12 | 8/8/07 |
And the Question Is... Writing Good Survey Questions |
Students are introduced to asking questions as a vital part of the research process and everyday life. They practice this skill through a group-based activity in which they analyze and create questions for a survey on reading habits. | 9-12 | 8/8/07 |
Animal Study: From Fiction to Facts |
Students listen to matching fiction and nonfiction read-alouds and explore selected Web sites to identify factual information about animals. To complete their exploration, students predict, question, confirm, and record information about one animal. This lesson plan focuses on ants, but the project can easily be adapted to any animal of interest. Resources are included for ants, black bears, fish, frogs and toads, penguins, and polar bears. | K-2 | 5/2/08 |
Applying Question–Answer Relationships to Pictures |
In this lesson, teacher modeling is provided in applying question-answer relationships (QARs) to pictures, with an opportunity for students to then work independently. The lesson is designed for third- or fourth-grade students who have not previously used the QAR strategy or who have reading difficulties. | 3-5 | 11/21/08 |
Argument, Persuasion, or Propaganda? Analyzing World War II Posters |
In this lesson plan, students analyze World War II posters to explore how argument, persuasion, and propaganda differ. The lesson begins with a full-class exploration of the famous “I WANT YOU FOR U.S. ARMY” poster, featuring a determined Uncle Sam, and progresses to a more detailed analysis of a specific World War II poster chosen from an online collection. | 9-12 | 11/20/08 |
Artistic Elements: Exploring Art Through Descriptive Writing |
In this lesson, students become engaged in the studies of both art and written language, as they create descriptive writing pieces in which adjectives are used to describe the artistic elements present within a work. | 3-5 | 9/14/07 |
As Slippery as an Eel: An Ocean Unit Exploring Simile and Metaphor |
After reading ocean-themed books, students examine the ways that the books use simile and metaphor, creating their own names and definitions of these figures of speech. Using the picture books as framing texts, students then revise a piece of their own writing, to increase its use of figurative language. | K-2 | 1/31/08 |
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. After completing this full-class activity, students search for additional, relevant texts; each choose one; and write reviews of the texts that they choose. Students are highly encouraged to identify a text that is personally relevant to themselves and their peers. This lesson is an especially powerful choice for English language learners. | 9-12 | 12/8/08 |
Astronomy Poetry: Combining Poetry With the Content Areas |
Marvel at your students' creativity and mastery of content area topics as they combine science and poetry in this innovative lesson. The lesson can easily be modified for any content area. | 6-8 | 11/21/08 |
Audience, Purpose, and Language Use in Electronic Messages |
With the increasing popularity of e-mail and online instant messaging among today’s teens, a recognizable change has occurred in the language that students use in their writing. This lesson explores the language of electronic messages and how it affects other writing. Furthermore, it explores the freedom and creativity for using Internet abbreviations for specific purposes and examines the importance of a more formal style of writing based on audience. | 6-8 | 4/17/08 |
Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization |
Audio broadcasts provide an individualized experience for listeners, who create mental images to accompany the words and sounds they hear. Orson Welles’ broadcast of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds in October 1938 provides perhaps the most well-known example of listeners’ imaginations leading to a very vivid experience. After exploring Welles’ broadcast, students create criteria for effective audio dramatizations and then compose their own dramatization of a scene from a recent reading. | 9-12 | 5/2/08 |
Audio Listening Practices: Exploring Personal Experiences with Audio Texts |
This lesson plan asks students to explore the ways that audio texts play a role in their lives. Students keep a daily diary that records how and when they listen to audio texts, such as radio, streaming media, songs on MP3 players, and podcasts. Students then analyze the details and compare their results to published reports on American radio listeners. They conclude by reflecting on their findings and writing a final statement on their audio literacy practices and interests. | 9-12 | 10/15/08 |
Authentic Persuasive Writing to Promote Summer Reading |
Devote time during your last weeks of school to promote summer reading by inviting students to create brochures and flyers that suggest books and genres to explore during the summer months. This lesson can be customized to focus on another time of year or specific focus. | 9-12 | 3/20/07 |
Authentic Writing Experiences and Math Problem-Solving Using Shopping Lists |
This activity allows students to use their emerging writing skills to write their own shopping lists. Students are highly motivated to work within a budget, use their problem-solving skills to create shopping lists, and buy their favorite treats at the class store. | K-2 | 11/19/08 |
Author Study: Improving Reading Comprehension Using Inference and Comparison |
Fourth- and fifth-grade students read picture books by an author/illustrator, make inferences about the author based on the works, compare two biographies of the author finding discrepancies between them, study the work of another author/illustrator, and compose their own brief author biography. | 3-5 | 5/22/06 |
Avalanche, Aztek, or Bravada? A Connotation Mini-Lesson |
Would you rather drive an Avalanche, an Aztek, a Bravada, a Suburban or a Vue? In this mini-lesson, 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. | 6-8 | 4/24/06 |
Avoiding Sexist Language by Using Gender-Fair Pronouns |
In this lesson plan, students write a response to a short prompt which includes no information about the participants' gender. Once the writing is complete, students and teacher analyze the narratives for the use of pronouns and what the pronoun choices reveal about language use. | 9-12 | 11/19/08 |
Battling for Liberty: Tecumseh’s and Patrick Henry’s Language of Resistance |
This lesson extends the study of Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech to demonstrate the ways Native Americans also resisted oppression through rhetoric and action. Through reading and hearing the speeches of Tecumseh, students develop a new respect for the Native Americans' politically effective and poetic use of language. | 6-8 | 11/20/08 |
Become a Character: Adjectives, Character Traits, and Perspective |
In this activity, students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using Internet reference tools to compile lists of accurate, powerful adjectives. In class discussion, students support their lists with details from the novel. | 9-12 | 2/15/08 |
Becoming History Detectives Using Shakespeare’s Secret |
Students read the contemporary mystery Shakespeare’s Secret by Elise Broach and discover how the author’s liberal use of historical details enhances the story and can inspire further exploration of historical facts and the creation of a short dramatic skit. | 6-8 | 4/21/08 |
Behind the Masks: Exploring Culture and Self Through Art and Poetry |
In this integrated unit of study, a teacher librarian pairs with an art teacher to introduce high school students to mask making around the world. Students research various cultures, make cultural and personal masks, and compose poetry to reveal the meaning behind their masks. | 9-12 | 11/21/08 |
Behind the Scenes With Cinderella |
This lesson invites students to explore two different versions of Cinderella and to make connections between story background elements (e.g., setting) and cross-curricular topics (e.g., geography and science). Students use literature and the Internet to research and create a variety of language arts activities to showcase their knowledge. | 3-5 | 11/21/08 |
Between the Lions: Exploring Short-Vowel Sounds |
Not only is "Between the Lions" an exciting, educational television program by PBS, it also has a captivating website with a variety of activities that students will enjoy. This lesson provides examples of how the "Between the Lions" website can be used by a first-grade class studying short-vowel sounds. | K-2 | 6/26/07 |
Beyond “What I Did on Vacation”: Exploring the Genre of Travel Writing |
This lesson introduces the genre of travel writing. Students read and then write travel articles as a way of going beyond simple personal narrative. | 9-12 | 8/16/07 |
Beyond the Story: A Dickens of a Party |
Students are invited to attend a 19th Century Victorian party, hosted by Scrooge's nephew Fred, to celebrate Scrooge's new outlook on life. The invitation requires that guests assume the persona of a character from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Reading, writing, research, and revelry abound as students explore the internet in search of creating the perfect performance. | 6-8 | 12/23/08 |
Bingo! Using Environmental Print to Practice Reading |
This lesson assumes that students have some practice reading and writing environmental print and encourages them to use the things they have learned to create Bingo cards and play environmental print Bingo. | K-2 | 12/5/06 |
Bio-graph: Graphing Life Events |
This writing activity integrates mathematical graphing with writing and can be used to generate a number of different kinds of writing activities, but lends itself well to biographical and narrative writing. Students interview other students, choose significant life events, rate them, graph them, and write about one or more. | 9-12 | 3/20/07 |
BioBags: Linking Literature and Life |
In this lesson, which is also appropriate for older students, each student creates a BioBag, a collection of texts that mark special times in his or her life. BioBags provide a unique way for students to share memorable events—and a variety of texts—with one another. | 3-5 | 4/12/07 |
Biographies: Creating Timelines of a Life |
Studying biographies is of interest and value to young learners. This lesson supports students' exploration of sources to create a timeline about the life of a person. The experience requires students work together and research and resolve conflicting information. Extension activities include developing essays from the research. | 3-5 | 7/13/07 |
Biography Project: Research and Class Presentation |
Students improve their comprehension in this biography project through the use of graphic organizers, rubrics, and cooperative learning. They each research a famous person, make a graphic organizer (a web), present main aspects of the person's life to the class, and give feedback to one another throughout the project. | 6-8 | 6/26/07 |
Blending Fiction and Nonfiction to Improve Comprehension and Writing Skills |
This innovative writing lesson integrates fiction and nonfiction to create a blended genre that improves students' critical comprehension and writing skills. Students learn about a content area topic through a text set and Internet research, then blend elements of fiction and nonfiction to create an original piece that demonstrates new knowledge. | 3-5 | 11/18/08 |
Blogging With Photovoice: Sharing Pictures in an Integrated Classroom |
Make the most of your students’ diverse ability levels and experience in a prewriting activity that has them describe an abstract idea using blogging technology and photographs that they have taken. | 9-12 | 11/29/07 |
Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia |
Students work together to create their own utopias, using blogs as the primary source of publication. | 9-12 | 11/25/08 |
Blurring Genre: Exploring Fiction and Nonfiction with Diary of a Worm |
Students often believe that fiction writers make everything up, seldom realizing how research is incorporated into entertaining writing. They may believe that research only applies to school writing. In this lesson, students incorporate facts into a variety of text types, creating a class book similar to Diary of a Worm. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
Book Buddy Biographies: Intermediate and Primary Students Working Together |
The success of a year-long Book Buddy program hinges on those first few days at the beginning of the year. As intermediate and primary students are first introduced, they have the opportunity to get to know each other on a more personal level by creating personalized biographies by interviewing each other, recording responses, putting the information into book format, and illustrating their books. | K-2 | 4/3/06 |
Book Clubs: Reading for Fun |
Students reading on their own and just for fun? Sure! This lesson explores how small groups of students decide to meet every other day to discuss what they've read in a "just for fun" book club they've organized—and that they control. | 3-5 | 11/20/08 |
Book Report Alternative: A Character’s Letter to the Editor |
Students assume the persona of a character from a book that they have read and write a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper from that character’s perspective, focusing on a specific issue or situation explored in the novel. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
Book Report Alternative: Character and Author Business Cards |
When students make business cards for characters in books they've read or for the authors of those books, they're forced to think symbolically in order to create a short, simple text that represents the target appropriately—providing a title, relevant images, and other pertinent information. | 6-8 | 9/21/04 |
Book Report Alternative: Characters for Hire! Studying Character in Drama |
Students track one character throughout a play (in this lesson, a Shakespearean drama) to determine the character’s education, skills, extracurricular activities, previous employment, and possible references in order to create a resume for that character. | 9-12 | 12/9/08 |
Book Report Alternative: Comic Strips and Cartoon Squares |
Students tire of responding to novels in the same ways. They want new ways to think about a work of literature and new ways to dig into it. By creating comic strips or cartoon squares featuring characters in books, they're encouraged to think analytically about the characters, events, and themes they've explored in ways that expand their critical thinking by focusing on crystallizing the significant points of the book in a few short scenes. | 6-8 | 9/5/03 |
Book Report Alternative: Creating a Childhood for a Character |
Students will be introduced to familiar characters, from literature and from popular culture, whom readers first encounter as adults, but whose childhood stories are only told later. Students will then create a childhood for an adult character from a book of their choice. | 6-8 | 2/15/08 |
Book Report Alternative: Creating a New Book Cover |
This lesson plan invites students to critically observe book covers and dust jackets and learn more about what they include. Students are then given the opportunity to recreate a cover or a dust jacket for a book and compose an accompanying rationale for the changes they make. | 3-5 | 6/1/06 |
Book Report Alternative: Creating Careers for Characters |
What if one of the characters in the book you've been reading was looking for a job? This question is the focus of this activity which bridges technical writing and literary analysis by inviting students to become characters in a novel they have read, find a job for those characters, and write application letters and resumes for their assumed persona. | 6-8 | 5/2/08 |
Book Report Alternative: Examining Story Elements Using Story Map Comic Strips |
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. | 3-5 | 7/15/08 |
Book Report Alternative: Hooking a Reader with a Book Cover |
In this lesson, students select a book to read based only on its cover art. After reading the book, they analyze the cover and use an interactive tool to create a new cover for it. | 6-8 | 6/16/06 |
Book Report Alternative: Summary, Symbol, and Analysis in Bookmarks |
Students love to make bookmarks on the computer because they get to share their ideas with other readers at their school. Teachers love the project because it gives students practice in summarizing, recognizing symbols, and writing reviews—all while writing for an authentic audience. | 6-8 | 9/15/05 |
Book Report Alternative: The Elements of Fiction |
This versatile lesson encourages students to read a fiction book of their choice, analyze what they have read, write and illustrate an alternative book report identifying key elements of fiction, and share their stapleless book with other students in either pairs or small groups. | 3-5 | 11/19/08 |
Book Report Alternative: Writing Resumes for Characters in Historical Fiction |
What if a character from historical fiction came to life and asked your students for help writing a resume? What would your students need to know to help that character? This lesson invites students to put themselves in just this situation. Students explore help wanted ads, in print and online, to see what employers want then draft a resume so the character they’ve chosen can apply for a job. | 3-5 | 9/21/04 |
Book Reviews, Annotation, and Web Technology |
Integrating technology, research, and the language arts, students work collaboratively on this lesson reviewing books and creating hypertext on the Web. Reading, writing, purpose, and audience are synthesized, resulting in a challenging and creative student project. | 6-8 | 3/20/07 |
Book Sorting: Using Observation and Comprehension to Categorize Books |
This sorting lesson supports the development of critical-thinking and vocabulary skills through observation and discussion of text illustrations and content. With the whole group and then in pairs, students sort books into three or more groups using their own criteria, then explain in writing how they sorted the books. | K-2 | 11/19/08 |
Boys Read: Considering Courage in Novels |
Engaging stories featuring acts of courage can inspire boys to read and discuss literature with their peers. In this lesson, boys select, read, and discuss a novel with a male protagonist and write a persuasive essay addressing the ways in which the protagonist showed courage. | 6-8 | 8/16/06 |
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues |
Students are invited to confront and discuss issues of injustice and intolerance reading a variety of texts, from Young Adult literature to picture books. | 6-8 | 11/20/08 |
Bridging Literature and Mathematics by Visualizing Mathematical Concepts |
By bridging children’s literature and mathematics, this lesson builds students’ reading, writing, mathematical and scientific proficiency. During interactive read-aloud sessions, students identify and analyze elements of author’s craft in conveying mathematical information about the size and abilities of a wide range of animals. Then, by studying and following the examples in the books, students conduct a research project of their own, focusing on the same mathematical concepts. | 3-5 | 11/20/08 |
Bright Morning: Exploring Character Development in Fiction |
"If you were going to introduce the character you're reading about to someone who had never read the text, what words would you use to describe him or her?" With this question, students embark on an exploration of character in their reading, identifying traits and pointing to textual support. | 3-5 | 9/21/04 |
Brochures: Writing for Audience and Purpose |
Using this lesson plan, students create informative brochures that combine visual and verbal texts effectively, improving their ability to interpret other texts they encounter that combine graphics with writing. Additionally, students learn strategies for addressing audience and purpose that transfer into writing for other purposes and audiences. | 9-12 | 11/18/08 |
Building a Learning Community: Crafting Rules for the Classroom |
Most classrooms display rules for behavior that are either teacher made or purchased. Why not start the year by having students create a list of the behaviors they want to see practiced? This process builds community and helps students start the year positively well mannered! | 3-5 | 8/8/07 |
Building a Matrix for Leo Lionni Books: An Author Study |
In this author study, students listen to four books by Leo Lionni and discuss the literary elements of each story. With each new read-aloud story, students identify similarities and differences in the stories and work in groups to add illustrated information to a story matrix. Finally, students compare two stories of their choice. | K-2 | 11/19/08 |
Building Classroom Community Through the Exploration of Acrostic Poetry |
This lesson explores the genre of acrostic poetry and reinforces positive community practices in the classroom. After looking at various acrostic poetry websites, students participate in a shared writing experience. Students then write an acrostic poem about one of their peers using online resources such as thesauri and an interactive writing tool. | 3-5 | 9/7/05 |
Building Reading Comprehension Through Think-Alouds |
This lesson shows teachers how to use think-alouds in the classroom for improved understanding of texts and as an assessment of reading performance. | 6-8 | 5/16/05 |
Building Vietnam War Scavenger Hunts through Web-Based Inquiry |
After or while reading any book about Vietnam, students research the effects of the war on a specific group of people who were involved (e.g., nurses, soldiers, protesters) using the Internet then create Internet scavenger hunts that are then shared with the rest of the class. | 9-12 | 11/20/08 |
Building Vocabulary: Making Multigenre Glossaries Based on Student Inquiry |
This lesson builds vocabulary and encourages active reading by allowing students to choose their own vocabulary words from a text that the class reads. In order to help students absorb and comprehend these new words, they create multigenre glossaries that can then be used as a classroom resource. | 6-8 | 11/18/08 |
Buzz! Whiz! Bang! Using Comic Books to Teach Onomatopoeia |
Comic books are one of the tools found in popular culture that can successfully engage children in literacy. This lesson uses comics to teach onomatopoetic vocabulary words and to develop this literary device with students learning to use language. | 3-5 | 8/15/05 |
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. Work can also be published as podcasts on the Internet. Students tap research and persuasive writing strategies as they design announcements for an audience of their peers. | 6-8 | 8/31/07 |
Can You Convince Me? Developing Persuasive Writing |
This lesson teaches elementary students to write persuasive arguments. Within the context of a game, students are made aware of their inherent knowledge of how to persuade. The lesson then extends their understanding of oral argument into the written word. | 3-5 | 11/21/08 |
Casting Shadows Across Literacy and Science |
As they read about shadows in fiction, informational text, and poetry, students bring their own background knowledge and experiences to the text and extend their understanding of concepts. Lesson activities encourage students to use their observational skills, both in science and in literature, and to create their own shadow poetry. | K-2 | 10/18/06 |
Catching the Bug for Reading Through Interactive Read-Alouds |
Interactive read-alouds can help beginning readers learn good reading strategies. By listening to, discussing, and analyzing Miss Bindergarten Stays Home from Kindergarten by Joseph Slate, students construct meaning and explore the reading process. As an added bonus, they also learn how to prevent the spread of germs in the classroom. | K-2 | 3/8/06 |
Censorship in the Classroom: Understanding Controversial Issues |
In this lesson, students examine media bias and propaganda, and explore the reasons for censorship of controversial books. Using this information, students create an advertising campaign promoting their position for reading or banning books. | 9-12 | 9/30/08 |
Character Clash: A Mini-Lesson on Paragraphing and Dialogue |
When writers include dialogue in their stories, one of the questions that frequently comes up is how to structure texts that have changing speakers or thinkers. This lesson helps students identify the structures that will clarify their text by using colored markers or online resources. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
Characters in Because of Winn-Dixie: Making Lists of Ten |
Extend students’ brainstormed lists of characteristics for the characters in the novels they read by asking them to develop a list of ten important things about a specific character. Modeled on similar lists created by characters in Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn-Dixie, this lesson plan can be used as full class activity or can be tapped as a book report alternative. | 3-5 | 11/20/08 |
Charlotte is Wise, Patient, and Caring: Adjectives and Character Traits |
In this activity, students define the characteristics of adjectives and find examples of the part of speech in a shared reading. Then students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using Internet reference tools to compile lists of accurate, powerful adjectives. In class discussion, students support their lists with details from the reading. | 3-5 | 4/10/06 |
Charting Characters for a More Complete Understanding of the Story |
Character Perspective Charting allows students to compare characters and their goals. Students learn to fully understand a story by noticing how characters' goals differ and how problems arise as a result. Setting, problems, goals, and intentions are explored in this lesson. | 3-5 | 6/26/07 |
Child Labor: Giving Voice to Child Laborers Through Monologues |
Students explore child labor conditions during the Industrial Revolution in England and the United States and around the world today. Researching relevant websites, each student prepares and delivers a monologue in the "voice" of someone who lived during the Industrial Revolution. Students compare past and current child labor using an online Venn diagram. | 6-8 | 11/21/08 |
Childhood Remembrances: Life and Art Intersect in Nikki Giovanni’s “Nikki-Rosa” |
Adapted from Carol Jago’s Nikki Giovanni in the Classroom, this lesson invites students to explore what Jago calls the place “where life and art intersect” by completing a close reading of Giovanni’s poem and then writing about childhood memories of their own. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
Choose Your Own Adventure: A Hypertext Writing Experience |
Working in groups, students will read and analyze Choose Your Own Adventure Stories in text or hypertext format and brainstorm to develop setting, characters, and beginning plots for their own adventures. Working in smaller groups and finally individually, students will develop Choose Your Own Adventure Story Web sites. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
Choosing Clear and Varied Dialogue Tags: A Mini-Lesson |
In this mini-lesson, 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. Students identify dialogue tags in stories, collaboratively revise a passage from a novel to add more variety to the tags, and then apply the text structure to stories that they have written. | 3-5 | 10/31/07 |
Choosing One Word: Summarizing Shel Silverstein’s “Sick” |
After reading a text in the classroom, students work together to determine the one word that summarizes that text. This comprehension activity requires students to work together and highlights their ability to justify their word choice. | K-2 | 12/9/08 |
Choosing the Best Verb: An Active and Passive Voice Mini-Lesson |
For most students, speech and informal writing flow naturally. When it comes to more formal writing, however, students frequently choose passive voice constructions because to them, the verbs sound more academic or more formal. This mini-lesson explores verb choice in a variety of online resources then encourages students to draw conclusions about verb use which they can apply to their own writing. | 9-12 | 12/8/08 |
Choosing, Chatting, and Collecting: Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy |
Students self-select new vocabulary and apply context, experience, and conversation to help them understand the meanings and uses of the words. This strategy can be used with any content area, but in this lesson, an online script from Shakespeare is provided as an example. | 6-8 | 9/14/07 |
Click, Clack, Moo: Reading Word Family Words |
The Caldecott-winner Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin provides practice with and a purpose for learning word identification strategies. Using the notes from Farmer Brown and the animals as shared readings, first-grade students learn word families and how to decode new words in a word family. | K-2 | 9/27/07 |
Collaborating on a Class Book: Exploring Before-During-After Sequences |
In this classroom project, students and the teacher produce a class book through a group-writing activity, focusing on a basic before-during-after sequence of events. In this case, the book focuses on the carving of the class jack-o-lantern, though the lesson plan could be customized for explorations of other items in the classroom. | K-2 | 10/23/07 |
Collaborating, Writing, Linking: Using Wikis to Tell Stories Online |
This lesson engages students in the creation and publication of online stories, taking full advantage of the online environment to encourage creativity, connections, and collaboration. Students use wiki technology, which allows users to publish online without specialized skills. | 6-8 | 11/6/07 |
Collaborative Stories 1: Prewriting and Drafting |
Students participate in two small-group prewriting activities to gather ideas for a story to be written collaboratively by the whole class. After listening to the beginnings of several children’s stories, students work in groups to brainstorm plot ideas and story beginnings. Students then write a collaborative story on chart paper, working individually or in pairs to add to the story sentence-by-sentence, honing their teamwork skills and playing off each other's writing strengths. | K-2 | 2/28/04 |
Collaborative Stories 2: Revising |
Using a story which has been written collaboratively by students, the teacher leads a shared-revising activity to help students consider content when revising, with students participating in the marking of text revisions. | K-2 | 5/9/06 |
Color of Silence: Sensory Imagery in Pat Mora’s Poem “Echoes” |
Moving from personal experience to practical application, students use their senses to discover new ways to read and write. Pat Mora’s poem “Echoes” is used to demonstrate that our senses are powerful tools for literary analysis and comprehension.
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6-8 | 11/18/08 |
Color Poems—Using the Five Senses to Guide Prewriting |
As JoAnn Portalupi tells us, “Learning to ‘see’ means stretching to use all five senses.” By asking students to avoid visual metaphors, this activity taps students’ memories for images, sounds, and other sensory perceptions as they compose original color poems. This process not only stretches students’ ability to see but also encourages creative development and intellectual growth. | 3-5 | 11/19/08 |
Combining Read-Alouds With Economics in the Primary Grades |
This lesson combines the benefits of reading aloud to children with exposure to economic concepts. After hearing two storybooks read aloud, students compare them and discuss the economic terms natural resource and producer. This lesson also helps students relate stories to the world around them. | K-2 | 8/29/07 |
Comic Makeovers: Examining Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Media |
Students explore 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." This activity leads to greater awareness of the stereotypes in the media and urges students to form more realistic visions as they perform their makeovers. | 9-12 | 11/19/08 |
Comics in the Classroom as an Introduction to Genre Study |
The combination of the simple, yet complex nature of comic strips and comic books make them an excellent source of teaching material, as they explore language in a creative way. In this lesson, students will be examining the genre and subgenres of comics, their uses, and purposes. | 3-5 | 12/8/08 |
Comics in the Classroom as an Introduction to Narrative Structure |
A strong plot is a basic requirement of any narrative. Students are sometimes confused, however, by the difference between a series of events that happen in a story and the plot elements, or the events that are significant to the story. This lesson uses comic strip frames to define plot and reinforce the structure that underlies a narrative, as students write their own original narratives. | 3-5 | 11/19/08 |
Communicating on Local Issues: Exploring Audience in Persuasive Letter Writing |
Students will research a local issue of personal concern to them then write letters to two different audiences that ask readers to take a related action or adopt a specific position on the issue. | 9-12 | 3/30/06 |
Compare and Contrast Electronic Text With Traditionally Printed Text |
The purpose of this lesson is to familiarize students with the similarities and differences between electronic text and traditionally printed text. Students examine the textual aids included in a textbook and compare them to the textual aids included in an educational website. | 6-8 | 7/2/07 |
Comparing a Literary Work to Its Film Interpretation |
Students read an original piece of literature and view its film interpretation to compare the two works. They then write a persuasive essay about the validity of the adaptation. | 9-12 | 2/13/07 |
Comparing and Contrasting: Picturing an Organizational Pattern |
Using picture books as mentor texts, students learn effective strategies for organizing information that compares and contrasts. Students can then apply appropriate organizational strategies to their own papers. | 6-8 | 6/20/07 |
Comparing Electronic and Print Texts About the Civil War Soldier |
To complete research for any kind of writing project, students need effective comprehension strategies for both print and online text. This lesson has students practice these strategies and compare the similarities and differences in text conventions in print and online texts about the Civil War soldier’s camp life. | 6-8 | 11/21/08 |
Comparing Fiction and Nonfiction with Little Red Riding Hood Text Sets |
Beginning with a comparative study of retellings of “Little Red Riding Hood” and modern revisions of the folktale, this literature unit continues with a study of fantasy, realistic fiction, and nonfiction texts. As students explore various depictions of wolves, they gain another perspective of the “villain” in the traditional tale. | K-2 | 11/20/08 |
Compiling Poetry Collections and a Working Definition of Poetry |
Students will explore a variety of poems about familiar topics and themes using poetry collections and anthologies. They will further learn about poetry craft elements. Using this as a model and inspiration, students will then create a poetry collection, using already published poems, and creating their own definitions of poetry. | 3-5 | 11/19/08 |
Completing the Circle: The Craft of Circular Plot Structure |
After exploring the organizing structure and writer’s craft of picture books, students identify, explore and apply the elements of circle plot structures to their own stories. Students use graphic organizers, read and write stories, and use checklists to assess their work. | K-2 | 11/20/08 |
Composing Cinquain Poems with Basic Parts of Speech |
Cinquain (pronounced "cin-kain") is a five-line form, using a wavelike syllable count of two-four-six-eight-two. In this lesson, students learn about cinquain and write simple cinquain of their own. | 3-5 | 11/20/08 |
Composing Cinquain Poems: A Quick-Writing Activity |
Cinquain (pronounced "cin-kain") is a five-line poetic form, using a wavelike syllable count of two-four-six-eight-two. In this lesson, students write simple cinquain of their own as a follow-up to a subject they have been exploring in class (for instance, units on animals, community, rainforest, or on a particular picture book, such as Amazing Grace). | K-2 | 6/28/05 |
Connect With Low-Literate Families: A Three-Tiered Approach |
Teachers working in schools with a high proportion of at-risk children may send home family literacy activities that are inaccessible to parents and caregivers who struggle with their own literacy skills. This lesson plan suggests a three-tier scaffolding model to help overcome this problem. | K-2 | 12/11/08 |
Connecting Past and Present: A Local Research Project |
Students connect to their school’s history by researching one decade of the school’s past. Through their research, students will become archivists, gathering photos, artifacts, and stories. As a culminating activity, students create museum exhibits displaying all the found items for their decade. | 9-12 | 11/18/08 |
Connotation, Character, and Color Imagery in The Great Gatsby |
Students explore the connotations of the colors associated with the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby by tracking color imagery in the novel and then writing a character analysis based on their findings. The lesson includes a discussion of connotation and denotation as well as discussion of cultural influences on connotation. | 9-12 | 11/8/05 |
Constructing New Understanding Through Choral Readings of Shakespeare |
After reading The Tempest or any other play by William Shakespeare, students work in small groups to plan, compose, and perform a choral reading based on a character or theme. | 9-12 | 5/29/08 |
Cooking Up Descriptive Language: Designing Restaurant Menus |
Students explore the genre of menus by analyzing existing menus from local restaurants, including a review of adjectives and descriptive writing based on the language included in the menu examples. After establishing the characteristics of the genre, students work in groups to choose a restaurant and then create their own custom menus. | 6-8 | 11/6/06 |
Copyright Infringement or Not? The Debate over Downloading Music |
Students discuss their own experiences and conduct further research on the controversial topic of sharing music and other audio content on the Internet. Based on their research, students take a stand on the controversy and develop persuasive arguments on their position that they present in a class debate on the subject of downloading. | 9-12 | 11/20/08 |
Copyright Law: From Digital Reprints to Downloads |
In this lesson, students look briefly at the history of copyright law and generalize about how and why it has changed over time. Students then apply this information to recent copyright issues, look at these issues from the perspective of a particular group, and create persuasive arguments to convince others to see the issue from their perspective. | 6-8 | 10/15/08 |
Cosmic Oranges: Observation and Inquiry Through Descriptive Writing and Art |
As a jumping-off point for inquiry and research, students use varied methods of observation, including sketching, to write objective and subjective descriptions. | 6-8 | 6/21/07 |
Cover to Cover: Comparing Books to Movies |
Students explore matching texts—novels and the movies adapted from them—to develop their analytical strategies, drawing comparisons between the two texts and hypothesizing about the effect of adaptation. Students design new DVD covers for the movies, reflecting their response to the movie version. | 6-8 | 11/16/07 |
Creating a Class Pattern Book With Popular Culture Characters |
As a class, students create a digital pattern book by first taking pictures of popular culture characters in various situations throughout their school and then writing accompanying text about them in a pattern book structure. | K-2 | 12/5/06 |
Creating a Classroom Newspaper |
Students love to share their writing. What better way for them to share than by creating a classroom newspaper? This lesson focuses on the newspaper genre of writing. Through the use of the interactive Printing Press or Microsoft Publisher (or another similar software package), students will develop a classroom newspaper while incorporating ICT (Information Communication Technology) into their learning. | 3-5 | 11/14/08 |
Creating Class Rules: A Beginning to Creating Community |
On the first days of school, students are led through a process for establishing year-long goals and needs for the classroom. These become the classroom guidelines which are used as a foundation for continuous community-building in the classroom. | K-2 | 11/19/08 |
Creating Classroom Community by Crafting Themed Poetry Collections |
Back to school means new teachers, new classmates and many unanswered questions. In this lesson, students create poetry collections with a back-to-school theme of “getting to know each other.” Students write poetry with the goal of introducing themselves, helping to create a sense of classroom community, while exploring the many and varied types and forms of poetry and constructing and refining their own definitions of poetry. | 3-5 | 11/19/08 |
Creating Family Timelines: Graphing Family Memories and Significant Events |
In this lesson plan, students interview their parents and other family members to gather family stories and event information, using questions from a brainstormed list. They create a family-event timeline based on the information from their interviews and display their information using a graphic map. | 3-5 | 3/31/08 |
Creating Question and Answer Books through Guided Research |
Students investigate one topic, recording details on KWL charts, through whole class read-alouds as well as individual reading of nonfiction text. The activity concludes with a collaborative writing project as students compose a class question and answer book. This lesson can be easily expanded for any grade level. | K-2 | 12/8/08 |
Creative Communication Frames: Discovering Similarities between Writing and Art |
Build a comparative frame to explore the creative processes of writing and art as communication. Graphic organizers assist the development of comparative vocabulary and generate discussions of analogy and metaphor in art. Apply to a real or virtual tour of an art gallery to develop narrative, expository, or analytical writing. | 6-8 | 1/31/08 |
Creative Outlining—From Freewriting to Formalizing |
In this lesson students respond to a short story by freewriting. They then determine a thesis idea for a literary analysis essay from their body of freewriting and create an outline for an original essay. | 9-12 | 11/18/08 |
Creative Problem-Solving with Ezra Jack Keats |
Students explore problem-solving in this lesson, which explores the challenges faced by characters in Ezra Jack Keats’ picture books. After reading a variety of Keats’ books, students explore the problems that the characters face and solutions that they choose through classroom discussion, story mapping, and comparison and contrast of several Keats’ books. | K-2 | 12/8/08 |
Creative Writing Through Wordless Picture Books |
In this lesson, students develop their own story lines for wordless picture books. Students explore a variety of wordless picture books, develop story lines both orally and in writing, and share their stories with others. Students use an online, interactive Story Map to assist in the development of story lines. | 6-8 | 11/7/08 |
Crit Lit for Kids: From Critical Consciousness to Service Learning |
An award-winning picture book provides the platform for an introduction to reading with critical awareness. Students explore concepts of social justice through discussion and journal responses. The class plans a service-learning project and creates a multimedia presentation to garner community support for their proposal. | 6-8 | 11/19/08 |
Critical Literacy in Action: Multimodal Texts on Global Warming |
Students use comprehension strategies to understand and interrogate various representations of the effects and possible causes of global warming. They then discuss and evaluate the credibility of different positions on the issue. | 6-8 | 9/30/08 |
Critical Literacy: Point of View |
By the sixth grade, most students are able to identify point of view in texts by recognizing writing in the first person, second person, and third person. In this lesson, students learn to look at texts from different viewpoints. Was the "big bad wolf" really bad? Throughout the lesson, students are encouraged to view texts from different angles. | 6-8 | 10/18/06 |
Critical Literacy: Women in 19th-Century Literature |
Thoughtful exploration of two short 19th-century texts introduces questions of critical literacy: What is the position of the writer and what is the intended audience for a literary work? | 9-12 | 1/31/08 |
Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising |
Students investigate the influence of advertising on their daily lives. Choices of clothing, music, and other products can be attributed to what adolescents see and hear on television, radio, and other media. In this lesson, students develop a critical eye toward advertising and investigate the hidden messages that are presented. | 6-8 | 6/21/07 |
Critical Media Literacy: TV Programs |
Television programming has a huge impact on the lives of children. This lesson focuses on the stereotypical and racial messages that are portrayed through television programming with a focus on situational comedies. | 6-8 | 6/21/07 |
Critical Perspectives: Reading and Writing About Slavery |
Through reading fiction and nonfiction children’s literature about the Underground Railroad, students critically explore the moral issues of slavery and the perspectives held by slaves and slave owners. They then use online, interactive tools to extend their understanding through creative writing projects. | 3-5 | 7/1/08 |
Critical Reading: Two Stories, Two Authors, Same Plot? |
In this lesson, students read two short stories with the same title ("The Luncheon") that have been written by two famous authors. Students compare and analyze both stories to find differences and similarities among the characters and the plot and draw conclusions as literary critics. | 9-12 | 6/26/07 |
Cultural Connections and Writing for Change |
While reading a story set in Palestine, students “meet” an Arab family, analyze book illustrations, and note cultural contrasts. They then collaborate to identify a social issue of concern and take action by writing and mailing a letter to an appropriate official. | 3-5 | 10/30/08 |
Cyberspace Explorer: Getting to Know Christopher Columbus |
Assisting young students in Web research is vital to their literacy development and gives them confidence as they approach digital text. In this lesson, based on the teaching strategies of Sutherland-Smith, teacher modeling and step-by-step handouts guide young explorers through a cyber scavenger hunt. | 3-5 | 11/7/08 |
Daily Book Boosts |
Each day at the end of their independent reading time, students give Book Boosts, one-minute raves about books they’ve read. These Book Boosts are easy ways to suggest a multitude of titles to students, and they act as a way for students to have something to think about as they read. | 3-5 | 6/27/07 |
Dancing Minds and Shouting Smiles: Teaching Personification Through Poetry |
In this lesson, students reflect on the use of personification in three classic poems, comparing and contrasting how each poet uses it. Students then complete a prewriting exercise before writing their own poems using personification. | 3-5 | 11/16/06 |
Dear Librarian: Writing a Persuasive Letter |
Inspire students to write their librarian a persuasive letter, requesting that a specific text be added to the school library collection. As they work on the project, students plan their arguments and outline their reasons and examples. Finally, students write a persuasive letter, which is assessed using a rubric. | 3-5 |