In this alternative to the traditional book report, students report on their novel choices that feature journeys by creating postcards one of the settings featured in their books.
Book Report Alternative: Creating Postcards for Fictional Settings
Captioning the Civil Rights Movement: Reading the Images, Writing the Words
Teachers guide students to carefully view images from the Civil Rights Movement and write captions that accurately describe the images and/or their probable purposes.
Picture This: Using Instagram to Report
After taking a field trip that students document using mobile app Instagram, students become new reporters as they use the interactive Printing Press to tell about their experiences.
Learning about Clouds with Haikus
Using a mobile app or Interactive activity, students write haikus describing various types of clouds that they have studied.
Technical Reading and Writing Using Board Games
Students celebrate a novel they have read and get hands-on experience with technical writing by creating a board game based on the novel and writing the instructions for it.
Letter Poems Deliver: Experimenting with Line Breaks in Poetry Writing
Students explore letter poems and experiment with writing letters as poems, using the placement of line breaks to enhance rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance.
Who's Got Mail? Using Literature to Promote Authentic Letter Writing
Students discuss and chart letter elements and write their own letters to adults at school, reinforcing letter-writing skills beyond the classroom lesson.
Poetry from Prose
Working in small groups, students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading.
Composing Cinquain Poems with Basic Parts of Speech
Reinforce student understanding of parts of speech through the analysis of sample cinquain poems followed by the creation of original cinquains.
Fairy Tales from Life
Picture books provide the basis for an analysis of fairy tale elements before students write their own original tales.
Seasonal Haiku: Writing Poems to Celebrate Any Season
After listening to haiku poetry, students use seasonal descriptive words to write their own haiku, following the traditional format. They then publish their poems by mounting them on illustrated backgrounds.
Playing with Prepositions through Poetry
Students play with and explore prepositions during a whole group reading of Ruth Heller's Behind the Mask, and then by composing and publishing prepositional poems based on the book's style.
Writing and Assessing an Autobiographical Incident
Students build upon their knowledge of biographies to write their own autobiographical incident. After going through a process of revision, they use a rubric to assess their work.
2025 NCTE Annual Convention
Each November thousands of literacy educators from across the country make the journey to a Convention that inspires their practice and rejuvenates their profession.
Stapleless Book
The Stapleless Book can be used for taking notes while reading, making picture books, collecting facts, or creating vocabulary booklets . . . the possibilities are endless!
Crossword Puzzles
This tool allows students to complete crossword puzzles on a variety of grade-appropriate topics, and also create and print their own crossword puzzles.
Compare & Contrast Map
The Compare & Contrast Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for different kinds of comparison essays.
Essay Map
The Essay Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for an informational, definitional, or descriptive essay.
Fractured Fairy Tales
The Fractured Fairy Tale tool encourages students to create their own fractured fairy tales.
Bio Cube
Bio Cube is a useful summarizing tool that helps students identify and list key elements about a person for a biography or autobiography.