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Share with your students the songs from Patriotic Melodies from the Performing Arts Encyclopedia of the Library of Congress. Ask your students to consider how America, Americans, and the flag are represented in the various songs and to hypothesize about the reasons for the differences that they notice. With 27 songs to choose from, each student can work on a separate song or small groups can tackle several songs. The songs range from well-known tunes such as "When Johnny Came Marching Home" and "You're a Grand Old Flag" to more obscure songs like the "Library of Congress March."

Explore the ways that eyewitness reports shape our understanding of events we can't see first-hand. Introduce students to this topic using a lesson (adapted to your grade level), such as Through the Eyes of a Refugee, which examines the first-hand reports of an Afghan refugee, or Evaluating Eyewitness Reports, which examines first-hand accounts of the Great Chicago Fire.

Then have students break into small groups for an end-of-the-year research project. First, provide an outline or list of the main topics you've studied during the year. Or, have students use their textbook as a reference. Have each group select an event to research, taking care that topics are not too broad, such as "World War II." Using primary source documents, have students research the event using eyewitness accounts. A good source of primary documents can be found at the American Slave Narratives website. Finally, have each group present their research to the class, for an end-of-the-year review session.

What do names tell us about people? Ask students to write about the origin of their own names in their journals. How did they come to be named? Who made the decision about their official names? What nicknames do they have? What names do they like or dislike and why? If they could pick out their own names, what would they select?

After students have had time to reflect and write on this topic, explore the names Malcolm X used during his lifetime: Malcolm Little, Detroit Red, Malcolm X, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, and Omowale. Students may have an easier time understanding Malcolm X's switches if they consider Esperanza's desire to change her name in Sandra Cisneros's House on Mango Street. Share this excerpt with students, and then hold a class discussion about the different names Malcolm X used during his life. Next to each name, ask the class to brainstorm adjectives that might be used to describe Malcolm X during that period in his life.

National Public Radio's commercial-free programming is largely financed by listener contributions. By not relying on advertising revenues, NPR and other public radio stations are able to produce programs that differ from those of commercial radio stations.

List some of the programs offered by a local NPR station (e.g., Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, or Living on Earth). Ask students to make some predictions about the content of each program based upon the program's title. Divide students into groups and instruct each group to listen to one of these programs once or more during the course of a week and report on its contents to the class. Discussions that might follow such reporting could include questions such as:

• What did you learn as a result of listening to this show?
• Is this a program that might be of interest to someone your age? Why or why not?
• How might this program be different if it aired on a commercial radio station?

Ask students to think of movies, TV shows, and books they remember from their childhood. Encourage them to identify those from when they were very young. Ask students to choose an item from the list that they have not seen or read in a long time and to describe everything they remember-the plot, characters, and other elements as well as their associated feelings.

Next, ask students to revisit the item or to ask an adult about it. Students can respond by writing what they think about the text now that they are older: Do they still like it? What details did they remember? What did they NOT remember about it? Finally, ask students to explain whether they would share it with a child of their own or a younger sibling.

Students love to watch and talk about movies. With persuasion, they can even be convinced to write about movies. For younger and middle-grade students, you can ask them to make lists of their favorite and their least favorite movies. Looking over these lists, students can then brainstorm qualities that make a film good or bad. Examples might include acting, special effects, and humor. Ask them to rank these qualities from the most to least important and then to explain why the top three are the most important elements to look at in a film.

Next, have students apply these criteria to a film they have seen by writing a movie review that makes their critical stance clear. Older students can take this activity one step further by comparing their review to that of another critic. After reading through one or more reviews, students should write an answer to one of the critics, defending their own reviews and critical stance.

Having students write their own blues lyrics is a great way to teach rhythm, rhyme, and word choice. The most common form of the blues is referred to as the "12-bar blues" because of the twelve measures that are typical of the style. Share a blues song with your students before they begin to write, and distribute copies of the lyrics to a song with this structure. You may want to play a clip from Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues."

After looking at the lyrics, ask students to identify the structure used. They should be able to see that the lyrics of a 12-bar blues song often follow an AAB pattern. "A" refers to the first and second four-bar verses, and "B" is the third four-bar verse. In a 12-bar blues song, the first and second lines are repeated, and the third line is a response to them-often with a twist.

Next, brainstorm a list of subjects with your students about things that might give them "the blues." Then, have students choose a topic and try to write a blues song that follows the pattern they identified. Invite adventurous students to perform their songs!

In celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week, read a book about a teacher such as Thank You, Mr. Falker, Miss Nelson is Missing, or a Magic School Bus story with Ms. Frizzle. Why are the teachers in these stories special? Have a class discussion about some of your students' favorite teachers. Then have students try these follow-up activities:

• Compare a favorite teacher to a teacher from a book with the Interactive Venn Diagram.
• Write a letter to a favorite teacher using the Letter Generator.
• Create a character map of either Miss Nelson or another storybook teacher with the Story Mapping tool.
• Use the Essay Map to plan and write an essay on why they would or would not like to be a student in one of the storybook teachers' classrooms.
• Read and present another book about a special teacher. Older students may choose books like The Miracle Worker by William Gibson, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, or A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines.

After reading several of Lionni's stories, play the game Guess the Story.  Invite a student to pull a sentence strip that describes one of Lionni's messages from a box. (Older students can create the sentence strips in collaborative groups.) Students should explain what the message means and the book it is from.  Some suggested messages include the following:

• Let's work together.
• Take time to smell the roses.
• You are never alone when you have a friend.
• Don't take your family for granted.
• Everybody is special.
• Be happy with who you are.

As a follow-up, have your students write and illustrate their messages with the ReadWriteThink Stapleless Book.

Celebrate the Roebling family's achievement and explore the literary concept of point of view by sharing with students a pair picture books that highlight the controversies over the construction and opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. The two books, Twenty-One Elephants by Phil Bildner and Twenty-One Elephants and Still Standing by April Jones Prince use the same historical event as their centerpiece: the crossing of the bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn by the elephants from P. T. Barnum's circus.

• Begin by showing students the first pictures of the two books and asking them to predict how the stories might be similar and different. Students will note that both stories will likely discuss the construction of the bridge, but will have different points of view.
• Ask students to confirm or clarify their predictions as you read the two stories.
• After reading, have students discuss the similarities and differences between the books based on the two points of view. Which book had a more personal perspective? Which was more informative? How were similar events portrayed differently? Which book did they prefer?
• Have pairs of students apply their observations by writing two complementary pieces about a recent classroom event (e.g., a school performance, a field trip, or a classroom party). Have one student write an account from a general observer's perspective, while the other writes from the perspective of a student in the classroom.
• Ask students to share their writing and discuss how they chose different details, used different forms of expression, and conveyed different stories about the same event.