Students identify genre characteristics for short stories and newspaper articles then practice both genres by turning a short story into a news article and an article into a short story.
Imagine That! Playing with Genre through Newspapers and Short Stories
Picture Books as Framing Texts: Research Paper Strategies for Struggling Writers
Students use picture books as framing texts for research, freeing them from the language of encyclopedia sources and allowing them to focus their attention on the content of their papers.
Childhood Remembrances: Life and Art Intersect in Nikki Giovanni's "Nikki-Rosa"
Students explore what Carol Jago calls the place "where life and art intersect" by reading Nikki Giovanni's poem, "Nikki-Rosa," and then writing about childhood memories of their own.
Book Report Alternative: Creating Careers for Characters
Students select a job listing for a character in a book they have read, then create a resume and application letter for that character.
Prove It!: A Citation Scavenger Hunt
Students are challenged to find citations that support details about the characters, plot, or themes from a text.
Animate that Haiku!
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.
Audience & Purpose: Evaluating Disney's Changes to the Hercules Myth
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.
Active Reading through Self-Assessment: The Student-Made Quiz
This recurring lesson encourages students to comprehend their reading through inquiry and collaboration. They choose important quotations from the text and work in groups to formulate "quiz" questions that their peers will answer.
Writing for Audience: The Revision Process in The Diary of Anne Frank
After reading or viewing The Diary of Anne Frank, students will make connections between audience and purpose and revise a journal entry with an outside audience in mind.
Developing Citizenship Through Rhetorical Analysis
Students analyze rhetorical strategies in online editorials, building knowledge of strategies and awareness of local and national issues. This lesson teaches students connections between subject, writer, and audience and how rhetorical strategies are used in everyday writing.
Picture This: Using Instagram to Report
After taking a field trip that students document using mobile app Instagram, students become new reporters as they use the interactive Printing Press to tell about their experiences.
Summarizing with Haikus
Using the Haiku Poem App or the Haiku Poem Interactive, students summarize papers they have written using the traditional format of a haiku.
Learning about Clouds with Haikus
Using a mobile app or Interactive activity, students write haikus describing various types of clouds that they have studied.
Book Report Alternative: Sharing Info from Informational Reading
Reporting on an informational book doesn't have to be boring! Instead of the traditional book report format, students create newspapers using a Printing Press interactive to share what they have learned from reading informational books.
Persuade Me in Five Slides! Creating Persuasive Digital Stories
After students write persuasive essays, use this lesson to challenge them to summarize their essays concisely by creating five-slide presentations.
Making the Cut: Revising Memoirs by Detecting Clutter and Confusion
Students improve a slide show by removing pictures. Their reasons for cutting pictures are translated into revision guidelines for cutting unnecessary words and sections from their rough drafts.
Teaching Voice with Anthony Browne's Voices in the Park
Students analyze Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne to determine how an author keeps an audience interested by creating voice and to applying that knowledge to their own writing.
Audience, Purpose, and Language Use in Electronic Messages
Students explore using electronic messaging and Internet abbreviations for specific purposes and examine the importance of using a more formal style of writing based on their audience.
Book Reviews, Annotation, and Web Technology
Students work in groups to create annotated book reviews with links to topics of interest related to their book.
Book Report Alternative: Summary, Symbol, and Analysis in Bookmarks
Students make bookmarks on computers and share their ideas with other readers at their school, while practicing summarizing, recognizing symbols, and writing reviews—all for an authentic audience.