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.
Songs of Our Lives: Using Lyrics to Write Stories
Grades
|
Creative Writing in the Natural World: A Framing
4 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Minilesson
Students practice writing detailed, sensory-rich descriptions by framing a small piece of nature and freewriting about it. From this minilesson, students can develop a variety of types of writing.
Grades
|
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick: Using Illustrations to Guide Writing
5 - 9
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
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.
Grades
|
Color My World: Expanding Meaning Potential through Media
3 - 6
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
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.
Grades
|
Utilizing Visual Images for Creating and Conveying Setting in Written Text
3 - 6
Lesson Plan
| Recurring Lesson
This lesson supports third-through-sixth grade students as they communicate story setting to their readers through the use of visual image prompts. Activities include individual and cooperative learning group work, as well as whole class discussion.
Grades
|
Opening the Door for Reading: Sharing Favorite Texts to Build Community
3 - 6
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
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.
Grades
|
Animate that Haiku!
5 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Following the traditional form of the haiku, students publish their own haikus using Animoto, an online web tool to produce slideshows that blend text and music.
Grades
|
Glogging About Natural Disasters
5 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
After researching various natural disasters, students share their findings with each other using glogs, or through poster presentations.
Grades
|
Book Report Alternative: Glog That Book!
5 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
In this alternative book report, students identify the elements of fiction in books they have read by creating glogs, interactive multimedia posters, and then share their glogs.
Grades
|
Designing Elements of Story in Little Blue and Little Yellow
K - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
In this series of four lessons, students will explore key elements of design in Little Blue and
Little Yellow to learn about setting, character relationships, and plot.
Grades
|
Audience & Purpose: Evaluating Disney's Changes to the Hercules Myth
5 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
What drives changes to classic myths and fables? In this lesson students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules" in order to achieve their audience and purpose.
Grades
|
Boars and Baseball: Making Connections
4 - 7
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
In this lesson, students will make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections after reading In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. After sharing and discussing connections, students choose and plan a project that makes a personal connection to the text.
Grades
|
Vocabulary Solutions: A Mixture of Science, Conversation, and Writing
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
In this lesson, students conduct a science experiment and later discuss the events of the lab during shared writing. Students explain the procedure in their own words and then revise to include content specific vocabulary. Finally, students reflect on new words added to their writing using the Trading Card Creator interactive.
Grades
|
Writing Acrostic Poems with Thematically Related Texts in the Content Areas
2 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students read thematically related texts, scaffolded from simple to complex, to help them gather necessary concept vocabulary and background knowledge in a content area. They then write acrostic poems to organize and present their learning in a creative way.
Grades
|
Huge Mistakes that Led to Catastrophe: Learning about Human-made Disasters throughout History
5 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
After researching various human-made disasters such as the BP oil spill, the sinking of the Titanic, and the Great Chicago Fire, students share their research in oral presentations. Then students pair up to compare and contrast their disasters using the Venn Diagram Student Interactive or the Venn diagram Mobile App.
Grades
|
Learning about Clouds with Haikus
4 - 6
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Using a mobile app or Interactive activity, students write haikus describing various types of clouds that they have studied.
Grades
|
A-B-C: It's Easy as 1-2-3 to Make Math Alphabet Books
4 - 8
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Using the Alphabet Organizer app, students create alphabet books to review math terms.
Grades
|
Seasonal Haiku: Writing Poems to Celebrate Any Season
3 - 5
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
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.
Grades
|
Quantitative Civic Reasoning: A Guide for Centering Civic Innovation in Math and English Language Arts Classrooms
4 - 12
Professional Library
| Professional Library
This guide explores quantitative civic reasoning in English and math classrooms.
Grades
|
Read Across America Day: Celebrate a Nation of Diverse Readers
K - 12
Calendar Activity
| Literacy-Related Event
Bring the celebration of reading and literacy into your classroom, library, school, and home all year long.