Creating a memoir of an older family member allows students both to learn more about their own backgrounds and to learn the power of storytellers.
Family Memoir: Getting Acquainted With Generations Before Us
Exploring Irony in the Conclusion of All Quiet on the Western Front
After reading All Quiet on the Western Front, students discuss the novel's ironic ending, then compose alternate titles and endings for the book, and design new book covers.
Supporting Vocabulary Development with EASE
This lesson allows teachers to enrich students' oral and written vocabulary using the EASE sequence of instruction: Enunciate, Associate, Synthesize, and Emphasize the words you want students to use.
Enchanting Readers with Revisionist Fairy Tales
Students examine three examples of revisionist fairy tales in which female characters act in empowered roles rather than behaving helpless and submissive.
Walt Whitman as a Model Poet: "I Hear My School Singing"
Students first analyze Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing," then use Whitman's poem as a model as they create their own list poems.
The ABCs of Poetry
Students examine a letter of the alphabet from all angles, creating image pools of original metaphors that they then turn into poems.
The Feature Story—Fifteen Minutes (and 500 Words) of Fame!
Students learn how to differentiate between a news story and a feature story by writing a profile of a classmate.
Letters and Learning Genre
Using their prior knowledge of books containing letters, students show their understanding of genre by rewriting a story and reflecting on how traditional stories differs from stories told in letters.
Book Report Alternative: Hooking a Reader with a Book Cover
Students select a book to read based only on its cover art. After reading the book, they use an interactive tool to create a new cover for it.
Stairway to Heaven: Examining Metaphor in Popular Music
Students explore figurative language by examining the lyrics of popular songs.
Comparing and Contrasting: Picturing an Organizational Pattern
Using picture books as mentor texts, students learn effective strategies for organizing information that compares and contrasts. Students can then apply appropriate organizational strategies to their own papers.
Once Upon a Fairy Tale: Teaching Revision as a Concept
Students use fractured fairy tales to practice revision and editing as separate activities when they write their own versions of fairy tales.
Judging a Book by its Cover: The Art and Imagery of The Great Gatsby
Students explore The Great Gatsby's allusion to art and its use of visual imagery and conclude their study by designing their own cover for the novel.
Entering History: Nikki Giovanni and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nikki Giovanni's poem "The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr." is paired with Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, taking students on a quest through time to the Civil Rights movement.
Preparing a Character for a New Job: Character Analysis through Job Placement
Working as career counselors for a literary character, students find a job for the character, prepare a resume, and design questions and answers to prepare them for a job interview.
Travel Brochures: Highlighting the Setting of a Story
Readers are often transported to the places mentioned in texts through words and descriptions. This lesson invites students to create travel brochures about the setting of texts they have read.
Book Report Alternative: Creating a Childhood for a Character
Students explore familiar literary characters, usually first encountered as adults, but whose childhood stories are only told later. Students then create childhoods for adult characters from books of their choice.
Analyzing Character in Hamlet through Epitaphs
Students create epitaphs for characters from a tragedy, such as Hamlet.
From Friedan Forward—Considering a Feminist Perspective
Students write letters expressing personal views on issues like equal pay, equal education/employment opportunity, and gender rolesand receive these letters six years later.
Exploring Audience and Purpose with a Single Issue
Students explore the concepts of audience and purpose by focusing on an issue that divided Americans in 1925, the debate of evolution versus creationism raised by the Scopes Monkey Trial.