Students analyze characterization by creating their own superheroes or super-villains,
complete with related gadgets and settings.
Fantastic Characters: Analyzing and Creating Superheroes and Villains
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick: Using Illustrations to Guide Writing
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.
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.
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.
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.
Book Report Alternative: A Character's Letter to the Editor
Students write a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper from a selected fictional character's perspective, focusing on a specific issue or situation explored in the novel.
Finding the Science Behind Science Fiction through Paired Readings
Students read science fiction texts and then use nonfiction texts to extrapolate the scientific principles presented as they discuss the "what ifs" within the context of scientific principles.
Literature Circle Roles Reframed: Reading as a Film Crew
Capture students' enthusiasm for film and transfer it to reading and literature by substituting film production roles for the traditional literature circle roles.
On a Musical Note: Exploring Reading Strategies by Creating a Soundtrack
Students create a soundtrack for a novel that they have read, as they engage in such traditional reading strategies as predicting, visualizing, and questioning.
You Know the Movie is Coming—Now What?
In this lesson, students read a literary text with the eye of a director, selecting scenes from the text and putting a cinematic spin on them.
Focusing Reader Response Through Vocabulary Analysis
Students suggest and categorize words that they associate with a novel they have recently read, ranging from details about the plot to feelings about a character.
Modeling Reading and Analysis Processes with the Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Explore reading strategies using Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and other works. Students read Poe's works in both large- and small-group readings then conclude with a variety of projects.
Exploring Free Speech and Persuasion with Nothing But the Truth
Students read Avi's Nothing But the Truth and examine the First Amendment and student rights, and then decide whether the rights of the novel's protagonist, Philip, are violated.
Beyond the Story: A Dickens of a Party
Students attend a 19th Century Victorian party to celebrate Scrooge's new outlook on life. They research characters from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and assume those personas for the party.
Book Report Alternative: Comic Strips and Cartoon Squares
Students must think critically to create comic strips highlighting six important scenes from a book they have read.
Doodle Splash: Using Graphics to Discuss Literature
Students keep a doodle journal while reading short stories by a common author. In small groups, students then combine their doodles into a graphic representation of the text.
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.
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.
Analyzing First-Person Narration in Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind
Students explore the different facets of complexity in the compelling first-person narrator in Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind.