After exploring The Odyssey and a contemporary epic, students choose paired characters from the texts, complete a graphic organizer, and place their characters in hypothetical contemporary situations.
Weaving the Old into the New: Pairing The Odyssey with Contemporary Works
Finding Poetry in Prose: Reading and Writing Love Poems
After reading several poems that expand the definition of love poetry, students compose found poems based on a personal memoireither their own or a love story of another writer.
Many Years Later: Responding to Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool"
Students analyze the Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "We Real Cool" and then write about how the character's pool hall days might influence who the character becomes fifty years in the future.
Connecting Past and Present: A Local Research Project
In this unit, students become active archivists, gathering photos, artifacts, and stories for a museum exhibit that highlights one decade in their school's history.
The Children's Picture Book Project
In this lesson students evaluate published children's picture storybooks. Students then plan, write, illustrate, and publish their own children's picture books.
Bio-graph: Graphing Life Events
Students interview other students, choose significant life events, rate them, graph them, and write about one or more, in this activity that integrates mathematical graphing with writing.
Thinking Inductively: A Close Reading of Seamus Heaney's "Blackberry Picking"
This lesson eases students' fear of interpreting complex poetry by teaching them a strategy with which they determine patterns of imagery, diction, and figurative language in order to unlock meaning.
Love of War in Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story"
Students explore the theme of love of war through texts on camaraderie among soldiers. They then compose a visual collage depicting their beliefs about the relationship between love and war.
When Less IS More—Understanding Minimalist Fiction
This lesson pairs Ernest Hemingway's short story "Cat in the Rain' with Raymond Carver's "Little Things" to guide students to an understanding of the characteristics of minimalist fiction.
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.
Twenty-First Century Informational Literacy: Integrating Research Techniques and Technology
Students develop their reading, writing, research, and technology skills using graphic novels. As a final activity, students create their own graphic novels using comic software.
Crossing Boundaries Through Bilingual, Spoken-Word Poetry
Students explore the idea of "crossing boundaries" through bilingual, spoken-word poetry, culminating in a poetry slam at school or in the community.
Analyzing and Podcasting About Images of Oscar Wilde
Students analyze images of Oscar Wilde used to publicize his 1882 American lecture tour. They then compare a caricature to another researched image, sharing this analysis in a podcast.
Website Planning in a Bilingual Classroom
Students complete a family survey and plan a website to share the responses, increasing their understanding and appreciation of their own families and cultures, and their classmates as well.
Reaching Across Time: Scaffolded Engagements With a 19th-Century Text
Students in the 21st century need to build background knowledge and fill in textual gaps to enter the unfamiliar world of "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street."
Making It Visual for ELL Students: Teaching History Using Maus
Spark the engagement of English-language learners or reluctant readers with the graphic novel Maus. The visual information provided by the genre serves as a support for reading and critical engagement.
I Used My Own Words! Paraphrasing Informational Texts
Tell me about it in your own words! If students can paraphrase the information they have read, then you—and they—can be confident that they understand it.
Using the Internet to Facilitate Improved Reading Comprehension
Could some common online activities actually improve reading comprehension? Understanding RSS feeds requires inferential thinking, as students use the summary to draw conclusions about the full content.
Creating a Persuasive Podcast
Students learn how to get their voice out on the web when they research issues important to them and compose a persuasive podcast to post online.
Creating Character Blogs
Students view examples of blogs, learn the basic elements of blog creation, and then create a blog from the perspective of a fictional character.