Combining words, images, graphics, and multimedia is simple with PowerPoint software. Students learn the basics of slide creation.
PowerPoint Tool Tips
Venn Diagram Rubric
The Venn Diagram Rubric can be used to provide students feedback on students' use of a graphic organizer to compare and contrast two things.
Compare and Contrast Rubric
Students and teachers can use this rubric when doing writing that compares and contrasts two things, as well as when assessing the writing.
Book Review Template
Students can use this template as a means of communicating about a book that they have read.
Character Map
Who are the characters in this story? Students will examine what a character looks like, what a character does, and how other characters react to him or her.
Compare and Contrast Chart
This organizer can be used to help students explain similarities and differences between two things or ideas. After this organizer has been completed, it could easily be developed into a classroom discussion or writing topic on the information gathered.
Conflict Map
Ask students to remember a story with no problem or conflict. That would be difficult to do! With this printout, students learn to examine the critical plot element of conflict.
Venn Diagram, 2 Circles
Students use this graphic organizer to describe similarities and differences between two objects.
Diamante Poem
This tool will allow your students to create a diamante poem by reflecting on their knowledge of a topic and by using nouns, verbs, and adjectives in a creative manner.
Essay Map
Use this graphic organizer to develop an outline for an essay that includes an introductory statement, main ideas, supporting details, and a conclusion.
Guided Comprehension: Making Connections Using a Double-Entry Journal
Based on the Guided Comprehension Model by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson helps students learn three types of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world) using a double-entry journal.
Exchanging Ideas by Sharing Journals: Interactive Response in the Classroom
Pairs of students respond to literature alternately in shared journals. Mini-lessons are presented on responding to prompts, creating dialogue, adding drawings, and asking and answering questions.
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.
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.
Cultural Connections and Writing for Change
A little understanding can go a long way. After learning about difficulties that Palestinian youths face, students will write a letter to an official discussing these issues.
Earth Verse: Using Science in Poetry
Students shape up their reading, writing, and listening skills in this lesson by creating original diamante, acrostic, and shape poems about science.
Promoting Cultural Values Through Alphabet Books
C is for Culture in this lesson in which students research a culture different from their own and compile an alphabet book that showcases cultural symbols for each letter of the alphabet.
Thoughtshots Can Bring Your Characters to Life!
Students will walk a mile in the shoes of Solomon Singer as they learn how to use flashbacks, flash-aheads, and internal dialogue to develop realistic characters.
Make a Splash! Using Dramatic Experience to "Explode the Moment"
Students will have a blast as they use descriptive language to write about an "explosive" and dramatic moment in their lives.