Students learn the importance of crediting others for their words and ideas, and then learn the paraphrasing and citation skills necessary to avoid plagiarism.
Research Building Blocks: "Cite Those Sources!"
Research Building Blocks: Skim, Scan, and Scroll
In this lesson from a research skills unit, students read informational text, looking for supporting details. They practice skimming and scanning print resources, and scrolling through electronic resources.
Myth and Truth: Independence Day
By exploring myths and truths surrounding Independence Day, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding the beginning of the Revolutionary War and the Independence Day holiday.
Book Report Alternative: The Elements of Fiction
Students identify the elements of fiction in a book they have read and share summaries of them by writing and illustrating their own mini-book.
Powerful Writing: Description in Creating Monster Trading Cards
Students create their own monster trading cards using "powerful," vivid language to describe their creatures.
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.
Using Picture Books to Teach Setting Development in Writing Workshop
Students use a graphic organizer to analyze setting development in picture books. They then apply what they have learned to their own writing.
Using Picture Books to Teach Characterization in Writing Workshop
Students explore character development through experiences with picture books. They learn about the connections between reading and writing and apply the information they learn to revisions of their own writing.
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.
Native Americans Today
This lesson challenges students' views of Native Americans as a vanished people by asking them to compare their prior knowledge with information they gather while reading about contemporary Native Americans.
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.
Learning to Learn with Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster
Modeled on the activities in Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster, a picture book, students combine vocabulary exploration with word play by planning their own vocabulary parade.
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.
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.
Biographies: Creating Timelines of a Life
In this lesson students explore a number of sources to create a biographical timeline about a selected person. Students collaboratively research and resolve conflicting information they find during their investigation.
Leading to Great Places in the Elementary Classroom
Students examine great leads in children's literature before writing or revising a lead in their own writing.
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.