In this lesson, athletics, aesthetics, and poetics intersect in new ways as developing literacy learners experiment together with the forms of language.
After reading about historical figures and other important people that have changed the world, children choose someone that they consider to be "amazing"—either someone they've heard about or someone they know—and create a book page that highlights this person.
Students brainstorm a list of famous athletic competitors and establish criteria for what makes an athlete "famous." Students then forecast which of today's athletes will still be remembered in 75 to 100 years.
In small groups or individually, students make baseball cards for the players in the poem "Casey at the Bat." Students can use a word processor or the Character Trading Cards interactive to create their cards.