Students read the poem "February 12, 1963" and write a poem to commemorate their own birthday.

After retelling a familiar fable, students discover the differences in one of Morrison's retellings of a fable.

Students revive elements of the oral tradition by writing about something funny that happened to them recently, sharing with classmates, and discussing the changes that occur during the retelling of the stories.

Students take place in a collaborative creative writing activity to begin to understand the hallmarks of the literary style known as magical realism.

In celebration of Keats' birthday, students write stories that include some characters from Keats' books and practice using collage techniques with the Collage Machine.

Students discuss some of the ways in which illustrations can enhance a story and then become illustrators, using a variety of media.

Students do a Bradbury author study and then create flyers to advertise their favorite story using the ReadWriteThink Printing Press.

Students explore varying points of view, one of Van Allsburg's common themes, by rewriting a traditional story.

Students work in small groups or as a class to map the plot of a selected Cynthia Rylant story and create original literary works using the plot diagrams.

A scene from one of Twain's works is chosen and students map the story setting using the Story Map. Setting is then discussed as a class.

Students select several books from one of Stratemeyer's series to read, discuss shared elements in the books, and use the 3-Circle Venn Diagram to compare story elements.

Students choose a small aspect of their lives to develop into a story, poem, or brief essay inspired by Cisneros' work.