Students learn about the life and music of John Lennon, write a short story from their lives integrating lyrics from some of their favorite songs, and create a class book of stories.
Songs of Our Lives: Using Lyrics to Write Stories
Blending the Past with Today's Technology: Using Prezi to Prepare for Historical Fiction
To prepare for literature circles featuring historical novels, students research the decades of the 1930s to the 1990s and share their information using Prezi, a web application for creating multimedia presentations.
Vote for Me! Making Presidential Commercials Using Avatars
After researching political platforms of past presidents through primary sources and other resources, students create commercials for these presidents using Voki, an online web tool that produces speaking avatars.
Book Report Alternative: Getting Acquainted with Farcebook
In this alternative to the traditional book report, students report on their novel choices using Facebook-like pages.
Sí, Se Puede: Making a Difference, One Letter at a Time
After reading the book ¡Si, Se Puede!/Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A., students learn about labor unions, strikes, and organizing for change. Students interview staff members in their school to learn about their daily work life, and write persuasive advocacy letters.
Quantitative Civic Reasoning: A Guide for Centering Civic Innovation in Math and English Language Arts Classrooms
This guide explores quantitative civic reasoning in English and math classrooms.
A Conversation with Sara Zarr
Tune in to hear Sara Zarr discuss religious faith and some of the thinking behind her newest novel, Once Was Lost.
Connection Web
Students use this printout to expand on connections they have made to a text and use those details to write essays or create projects about the text.
Double-Entry Journal
This printout helps students record ideas and situations from texts in one column, and their reactions in the second, thus making a connection between the text and themselves, another text, or the world.
RAFT Writing Template
Students can utilize this printout to organize their writing as they learn to use the RAFT strategy. This printout enables students to clearly define their role, audience, format, and topic for writing.
Making Connections
In this strategy guide, you'll learn to model how students can make three different kinds of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world). Students then use this knowledge to find their own personal connections to a text.
Using the RAFT Writing Strategy
This strategy guide introduces the RAFT technique and offers practical ideas for using this technique to teach students to experiment with various perspectives in their writing.
Socratic Seminars
This strategy guide explains Socratic seminars and offers practical methods for applying the approach in your classroom to help students investigate multiple perspectives in a text.
Assessing Student Interests and Strengths
In this Strategy Guide, you'll learn about a number of specific methods that can help you to gain a fuller picture of the interests of your students as well as what your students understand, know, and can demonstrate by doing.
Facilitating Participation with Silent Conversations
This guide introduces silent conversations, a collaborative learning technique that has students
thinking, sharing, and reflecting about important questions—but through writing rather than talk.
Conducting Inner-Outer Circle Discussions
This guide shares the steps to take to get more students talking by dividing the group into speaking and non-speaking circles.
Gwendolyn Brooks published Bronzeville Boys and Girls in 1956.
After students have read and discussed several poems from Brooks' collection, they create a poetry anthology for their own family, neighborhood, or classroom.
Sherman Alexie was born in 1966.
Students imagine they have been asked to participate in a museum exhibit, take photos/videos of a significant location, and write or record reflections. Students can also create an exhibit from something they have read.
Get ready for National Bullying Prevention Month!
Students create a poster to enter into a poster contest that educates others about issues surrounding bullying.
In 1939, Marian Anderson was denied permission to sing at Constitution Hall.
Students view Eleanor Roosevelt's resignation letter to the DAR in response to Andersen being denied permission to sing. Students write a letter to a newspaper editor about social injustice.