Students learn about the life and music of John Lennon, write a short story from their lives integrating lyrics from some of their favorite songs, and create a class book of stories.

Students use illustrations from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick as a guide to write mysteries and then present their stories to the class for students to discuss to which illustration each story corresponds.

Using different writing/drawing materials (e.g., markers, color pencils, pastels, etc.), students learn how to communicate different moods and/or feelings to support their written ideas and how authors do the same through their work.

Groups of students read and discuss American folklore stories, each group reading a different story. Using a jigsaw strategy, the groups compare character traits and main plot points of the stories. A diverse selection of American folk tales is used for this lesson, which is adaptable to any text set.

Students write persuasive letters to their librarian requesting that specific texts be added to the school library. As they work, students plan their arguments and outline their reasons and examples.

Students interview family members, and then create graphic family timelines based on important and memorable family events.

Students read and analyze fairy tales, identifying their common elements. They then write their own "fractured" fairy tales by changing one of the literary elements found in the original.

In this lesson, students build classroom community by exploring environmental print and a teacher-created display that focuses on a favorite book. They then create and share their own presentations.

Students use text sets to research a topic inspired by a fiction book they have read. A text set is a collection of multiple text genres with a single focus.

After exploring several question and answer books on a variety of topics, students research a topic and create their own class question and answer book.

During interactive read-aloud sessions, students identify how an author conveys mathematical information about animals' sizes and abilities. They then conduct research projects focusing on the same mathematical concepts.

After reading a piece of math-related children's literature aloud, students pose and solve new problems by asking what-if questions about the events in the story.

Students read picture books to explore the concepts of plot development and conflict resolution. They first learn about the connections between reading and writing, and then revise their own writing.

Using Snowflake Bentley as a model, students create a working definition of multigenre text and then use that definition to create their own multigenre piece about winter or another theme.

Students work on a guided characterization project, using a graphic map to illustrate the ways a character from a book series grows and evolves over the course of the story.

This unit introduces students to a variety of poetic forms and elements, as they compile their own collections of poetry.

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.

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.

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.

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.