Students create poetry collections with the theme of "getting to know each other." They study and then write a variety of forms of poetry to include in their collections.
Creating Classroom Community by Crafting Themed Poetry Collections
Color Poems—Using the Five Senses to Guide Prewriting
Students use their five senses as a prewriting tool to guide their poetry writing as they compose free-form poems using imagery to describe a color.
Happily Ever After? Exploring Character, Conflict, and Plot in Dramatic Tragedy
By exploring the decisions points in a tragedy, students consider how the plot of the story can change if the key characters make a different choice at the turning point.
Compiling Poetry Collections and a Working Definition of Poetry
This unit introduces students to a variety of poetic forms and elements, as they compile their own collections of poetry.
Paying Attention to Technology: Writing Technology Autobiographies
This lesson plan asks students to pay attention to the technologies they use. They graphically map their interactions with technology and compose narratives of their most significant interactions with technology.
Paying Attention to Technology: Exploring a Fictional Technology
Students complete a short survey to establish their beliefs about technology. They compare their opinions to the ideas in a novel that depicts technology (such as 1984 or Fahrenheit 451).
A Genre Study of Letters With The Jolly Postman
Students read The Jolly Postman, in which a postman delivers letters to storybook characters. They explore different types of mail and categorize letters from the book and their own mail.
Investigating Junk Mail: Negotiating Critical Literacy at the Mailbox
Students increase their media literacy skills by critically examining and revising junk mail.
Examining Transcendentalism through Popular Culture
Using excerpts from the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, comics, and songs from different musical genres, students examine the characteristics of transcendentalism.
Authentic Persuasive Writing to Promote Summer Reading
Turn summer reading lists from a teacher-centered requirement to a student-driven exploration by asking students to create brochures and flyers that suggest books to explore during the summer months.
Renaissance Humanism in Hamlet and The Birth of Venus
After reading Shakespeare's Hamlet, students identify, analyze, and explain how elements in Botticelli's painting Birth of Venus and examples from the play illustrate the philosophy of Renaissance Humanism.
Book Report Alternative: Writing Resumes for Characters in Historical Fiction
Students write resumes for historical fiction characters. They first explore help wanted ads to see what employers want, and then draft resumes for the characters they've chosen.
Unwinding A Circular Plot: Prediction Strategies in Reading and Writing
Students use graphic organizers to explore plot in circular stories while focusing on prediction and sequencing. After exploring the features of circular plot stories, students write their own stories.
Choosing Clear and Varied Dialogue Tags: A Minilesson
In this minilesson, students explore the use of dialogue tags such as "he said" or "she answered" in picture books and novels, discussing their purpose, form, and style.
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.
Choosing the Best Verb: An Active and Passive Voice Minilesson
Students explore how active and passive voices are appropriate to different audiences. They examine online resources, and then draw conclusions about verb use, which they apply to their own writing.
Weaving the Multigenre Web
Students analyze the elements of a novel in many different genres and then hyperlink these pieces together on student-constructed Websites.
Teaching the Compare and Contrast Essay through Modeling
The compare and contrast essay is taught through modeling from the brainstorming phase through the first draft.
Unlocking the Underlying Symbolism and Themes of a Dramatic Work
This lesson plan invites students to consider characters from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Students explore a selected character and write poems about objects associated with that character.
Genre Study: A Collaborative Approach
Students explore multiple genres through genre studies. They record evidence of genre characteristics on bookmarks as they read, and finish by giving a book review for their classmates.