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
Blurring Genre: Exploring Fiction and Nonfiction with Diary of a Worm
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.
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: 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.
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.
Plot Structure: A Literary Elements Mini-Lesson
Students learn that the plot structure described by Freytag's Pyramid is actually quite familiar as they diagram the plots of a familiar story, a television show, and a narrative poem.
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.
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.
Literary Characters on Trial: Combining Persuasion and Literary Analysis
Students stage a mock trial for a literary character, with groups of students acting as the prosecution, defense, and jury.
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.
He Said/She Said: Analyzing Gender Roles through Dialogue
Students analyze dialogue tags used with male and female characters in a book they have read. They then evaluate the message the dialogue tags convey about gender roles.
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.
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.
Digitally Telling the Story of Greek Figures
In this lesson students research Greek gods, heroes, and creatures and then share their findings through digital storytelling.
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.
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.
Action Is Character: Exploring Character Traits with Adjectives
Students must "become" a character in a novel in order to describe themselves and other characters using powerful adjectives.
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.
Choose Your Own Adventure: A Hypertext Writing Experience
Students analyze "choose your own adventure" stories and brainstorm to develop setting, characters, and plots for their own adventures stories and related Websites.