Students won't miss a beat in this musical lesson that combines listening with personal response on a postcard.
A Musical Prompt: Postcards From the Concert
Blending Fiction and Nonfiction to Improve Comprehension and Writing Skills
Students use a text set to increase understanding of content area material and demonstrate what they have learned by writing an original piece that blends together narrative and expository elements.
Behind the Scenes With Cinderella
Cinderella without castles, coaches, or ball gowns? Students use versions of Cinderella to explore how the setting of a storytime, place, and cultureaffects the characters and plot.
Thundering Tall Tales: Using Read-Aloud as a Springboard to Writing
Imagination and application are key to this tall tale lesson in which students take what they know about tall tales to spin a yarn of their own.
The Houdini Box: What Did Houdini Hide? Writing Creative Endings
Students are encouraged to understand a book that the teacher reads aloud to create a new ending for it using the writing process.
What's Under the Slide? Making Inferences Using Microscopes
Students hone their critical thinking skills by learning how to make inferences from textual clues.
Jazz Up Writing Workshop: Writing Biographies of African American Jazz Musicians
During writing workshop, students research, write, revise, and share their own comprehensive biographies of African American jazz musicians.
Integrating Literacy Into the Study of the Earth's Surface
Water covers 71% of the earth's surface—does it get the instructional time it deserves in your busy curriculum? Students wade right in to the study of bodies of water as they read and discuss science trade books and work together to develop Readers Theater scripts based on selected titles.
Using Word Storms to Explore Vocabulary and Encourage Critical Thinking
Students learn that dogs are more than just pets in this lesson, which teaches them to use research and vocabulary-acquisition strategies to learn and write about working dogs.
Learning About Research and Writing Using the American Revolution
Students across the board will get a kick out of researching a historical figure from the American Revolution to create an acrostic poem.
All About Our Town: Using Brochures to Teach Informational Writing
Students explore their towns' landmarks, symbols, and people; look at brochures and other informational tools; practice writing for a specific audience and revising; and work collaboratively to create a brochure.
All About Alliteration: Responding to Literature Through a Poetry Link
Studied students stupefy! Students learn about alliteration by listening to an alliterative read-aloud and apply the knowledge they gain to the creation of their own poem and illustration.
Skimming and Scanning: Using Riddles to Practice Fact Finding Online
Students will learn to skim and scan to make sure they don't flounder when they're surfing the Internet for facts to help them complete riddles about the United States.
Using Pictures to Build Schema for Social Studies Content
How do you read an image? Students find out in this lesson in which they "read" several images of the Boston Massacre to better understand the event and recognize effects of propaganda.
Writers' Workshop: The Biographical Sketch
Students use the faces and places they learn about in their research to write a biography about a contemporary or historical figure.
Reading and Writing About Pollution to Understand Cause and Effect
Students get to write a whale of a tale when they complete a graphic organizer sequencing the journey of a mountain fish to a polluted waterway.
This is My Story: Encouraging Students to Use a Unique Voice
What did the wolf think of Red Riding Hood? Once Upon a Fairy Tale offers his side of the story and more, providing vivid examples of how voice enlivens narrative. After comparing versions of the story, students apply the concept of voice to Fractured Fairy Tales and other writing activities.
Zines for Kids: Multigenre Texts About Media Icons
Special edition! Students use ReadWriteThink tools to create magazines about prominent figures using a variety of writing genres and styles.
Alaska Native Stories: Using Narrative to Introduce Expository Text
Tradition and technology come together in this lesson in which students learn about Alaskan animals through Native American tales and their own online research.
Multimedia Responses to Content Area Topics Using Fact-"Faction"-Fiction
Students climb into the mind of a spider in this lesson that asks them to compose a spider diary using spider facts, fiction, and "faction"fiction that sounds like fact.