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.
American Folklore: A Jigsaw Character Study
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.
Boars and Baseball: Making Connections
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.
Writing Acrostic Poems with Thematically Related Texts in the Content Areas
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.
Trading Card Creator
This tool provides a fun and useful way to explore a variety of topics such as a character in a book, a person or place from history, or even a physical object. An excellent tool to for summarizing or as a prewriting exercise for original stories.
Power of Picture Books, The: Using Content Area Literature in Middle School
Featuring descriptions and activities for fifty exceptional titles, Mary Jo Fresch and Peggy Harkins offer a wealth of ideas for harnessing the power of picture books to improve reading and writing in the content areas.
Connection Web
Students use this printout to expand on connections they have made to a text and use those details to write essays or create projects about the text.
Brainstorming and Reviewing Using the Carousel Strategy
This strategy guide introduces Carousel Brainstorming, also known as Rotating Review, and offers suggestions to implement this technique in your classroom for brainstorming about new topics or reviewing learned information.
Using the RAFT Writing Strategy
This strategy guide introduces the RAFT technique and offers practical ideas for using this technique to teach students to experiment with various perspectives in their writing.
Developing Academic Vocabulary
In this Strategy Guide Series, you'll find creative and compatible ways to build, maintain, and extend students' vocabulary across academic disciplines.
Using Word Walls to Develop and Maintain Academic Vocabulary
In this guide, you will learn how to use Word Walls to support vocabulary development and retention.
Using Disciplinary Facets to Deepen Academic Vocabulary Knowledge
In this guide, you will learn how to use the disciplinary facets strategy to support vocabulary development across contexts and academic disciplines.
Using Generative Sentences to Apply Academic Vocabulary
In this guide, you will learn how to use generative sentences to give students opportunities to apply their knowledge of new words in writing.
Introducing Ideas and Vocabulary with the Concept Sort
A Concept Sort is a vocabulary and comprehension strategy used with students to introduce new topics and/or familiarize students with new vocabulary.
Using Paired Reading to Increase Fluency and Peer Cooperation
In this strategy, students read aloud to each other, pairing more fluent readers with less fluent readers. This strategy can also be used to pair older students with younger students to create "reading buddies."
Bringing Lessons to Life with Animoto
Using Animoto, a free Web 2.0 tool, students can develop short digital videos that include music, photos, video clips, and text as well as share their creations electronically.
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education
This document is a code of best practices that helps educators using media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use.
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.
Q is for Duck: Using Alphabet Books With Struggling Writers
A is for zoo? Q is for duck? The alphabet as students know it is transformed when students create a class book that contains clever associations for each letter of the alphabet.