Students debate about incorporating service-learning into their school's curriculum.
The Great Service-Learning Debate & Research Project
Facilitating Student-Led Seminar Discussions with The Piano Lesson
August Wilson's play The Piano Lesson invites students to ask a number of questions—big
and small. Students learn how to create effective discussion questions and then put them to use in student-led discussions.
Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments
Students are often asked to perform speeches, but rarely do we require students to analyze speeches as carefully as we study works of literature. In this unit, students are required to identify the rhetorical strategies in a famous speech and the specific purpose for each chosen device. They will write an essay about its effectiveness and why it is still famous after all these years.
An Exploration of The Crucible through Seventeenth-Century Portraits
In this lesson, students incorporate analyses of characters from The Crucible with examinations of original seventeenth-century portraits of Puritans to create a visual portrait of the character. The project culminates in a "Portrait Gallery Walk" where students present and defend their artwork.
I Have a Dream: Exploring Nonviolence in Young Adult Texts
Students will identify how Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of nonviolent conflict-resolution is reinterpreted in modern texts. Homework is differentiated to prompt discussion on how nonviolence is portrayed through characterization and conflict. Students will be formally assessed on a thesis essay that addresses the Six Kingian Principles of Nonviolence.
Prompting Revision through Modeling and Written Conversations
Students create a checklist outlining what effective writers do, revise his or her own writing, and engage in a written conversation to help peers with the revision process.
Speaking Poetry: Exploring Sonic Patterns Through Performance
Using their voices as interpretive instruments, students gain a deeper appreciation of the art of poetry as they prepare a recitation of the frequently anthologized poem "Those Winter Sundays."
Modeling Academic Writing Through Scholarly Article Presentations
Students prepare an already published scholarly article for presentation, with an emphasis on identification of the author's thesis and argument structure.
The Feature Story—Fifteen Minutes (and 500 Words) of Fame!
Students learn how to differentiate between a news story and a feature story by writing a profile of a classmate.
Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization
After exploring Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, students create their own audio dramatization of a text they have read.
Myth and Truth: The Gettysburg Address
By exploring myths and truths surrounding Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding this famous speech from the Civil War era.
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.
Copyright Infringement or Not? The Debate over Downloading Music
This lesson takes advantage of students' interest in music and audio sharing. Students investigate multiple perspectives in the music downloading debate and develop a persuasive argument for a classroom debate.
Literary Scrapbooks Online: An Electronic Reader-Response Project
Students capture scraps of information from a variety of Web resources and use them to create an electronic scrapbook. Emphasis is placed on evaluating and citing resources.
Making Connections to Myth and Folktale: The Many Ways to Rainy Mountain
Following the model of N. Scott Momaday's The Way To Rainy Mountain, students write three-voice narratives based on Kiowa folktales, an interview with an Elder, and personal connections to theme.
Exploring the Power of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Words through Diamante Poetry
Students explore the ways that powerful and passionate words communicate the concepts of freedom, justice, discrimination, and the American Dream in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Teaching the Epic through Ghost Stories
In this lesson, students connect to the oral tradition of epic storytellers by sharing their own oral tales of ghosts and goblins and monsters.
Graffiti Wall: Discussing and Responding to Literature Using Graphics
Tap students' desires to doodle and draw by having them create a Graffiti Wall, using graphics to discuss a piece of literature that has been read by the whole class.
Novel News: Broadcast Coverage of Character, Conflict, Resolution, and Setting
This twist on readers theater has students prepare original news programs based on incidents in a recent reading, as they explore standard literary elements of character, conflict, resolution, and setting.
Chasing the Dream: Researching the Meaning of the American Dream
By conducting interviews, sharing and assessing data, and writing papers based on their authentic research, students reach their own conclusions on the meaning of the American Dream.