Students analyze characterization by creating their own superheroes or super-villains, complete with related gadgets and settings.

Students rework their forgotten/abandoned drafts by cutting and covering up selected words. By creatively manipulating text, they explore portal writing, a strategy for envisioning a new story or story direction.

After reading several examples of how a published author incorporates facts in fiction writing, students research a topic of their choice and write fictional diary entries that incorporate factual information.

Students choose unfamiliar words from their reading and create a multigenre, multimodal glossary of terms.

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.

Students examine three examples of revisionist fairy tales in which female characters act in empowered roles rather than behaving helpless and submissive.

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.

Students use fractured fairy tales to practice revision and editing as separate activities when they write their own versions of fairy tales.

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.

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.

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.

Capture students' enthusiasm for film and transfer it to reading and literature by substituting film production roles for the traditional literature circle roles.

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.

Students analyze their past readings and use that knowledge to create reading plans for the future.

Students research the items listed in the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel, noting their historical relevance, and then document their findings using an online chart.

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.

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.

Students develop a definition of multigenre texts by exploring multigenre picture books. They brainstorm what it takes to read these texts successfully and discuss strategies needed to comprehend the texts.

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.

Let the students be the vocabulary experts! Prior to whole class instruction, students create online flashcards and teach the class the new vocabulary.