Students analyze the lyrics to Cole Porter's "You're the Top!" and then update them to include current "tops" in pop culture.
You're the Top! Pop Culture Then and Now
Put That on the List: Independently Writing a Catalog Poem
In this follow-up to writing collaborative catalog poems, students write individual catalog poems about what really matters in their lives, based on Carver's poem "The Car."
Put That on the List: Collaboratively Writing a Catalog Poem
Using the structure of a list poem, students combine creative expression with poetic techniques and language exploration in order to write group poems about what really matters in their lives.
Designing Museum Exhibits for The Grapes of Wrath: A Multigenre Project
Using The Grapes of Wrath as a backdrop, students conduct research on issues that the novel addresses, publishing their findings in a multigenre museum exhibit.
Myth and Truth: The Gettysburg Address
By exploring myths and truths surrounding Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding this famous speech from the Civil War era.
Using Student-Centered Comprehension Strategies with Elie Wiesel's Night
Working in small groups, students read and discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir Night and then take turns assuming the "teacher" role, as the class works with four different comprehension strategies.
So What Do You Think? Writing a Review
Writing a review of an author's work challenges students to develop their critical thinking skills. It provides an opportunity for students to speak their mindsand to enjoy being heard.
Audio Listening Practices: Exploring Personal Experiences with Audio Texts
Students keep a daily diary that records how and when they listen to audio texts, then analyze the details and compare their results to published reports on American radio listeners.
Star-Crossed Lovers Online: Romeo and Juliet for a Digital Age
Explore the modern significance of an older text, such as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, by asking students to create their own modern interpretation of specific events from the drama.
Copyright Infringement or Not? The Debate over Downloading Music
This lesson takes advantage of students' interest in music and audio sharing. Students investigate multiple perspectives in the music downloading debate and develop a persuasive argument for a classroom debate.
Naming in a Digital World: Creating a Safe Persona on the Internet
Students explore naming conventions in digital and non-digital settings then choose and explain specific names and profiles to represent themselves online.
Literary Parodies: Exploring a Writer's Style through Imitation
This lesson asks students to analyze the features of a poet's work then create their own poems based on the original model.
Paying Attention to Technology: Reviewing a Technology
Students read and analyze technology reviews to establish the characteristics of the genre. They then compose their own reviews on a technology of their choice.
Focus on First Lines: Increasing Comprehension through Prediction Strategies
Students examine opening sentences of texts they will read during a unit or course and make predictions. They return to their predictions throughout the course as they read the texts.
Analyzing Symbolism, Plot, and Theme in Death and the Miser
Students apply the analytical skills that they use when reading literature to an exploration of the underlying meaning and symbolism in Hieronymous Bosch's early Renaissance painting Death and the Miser.
Connotation, Character, and Color Imagery in The Great Gatsby
Students explore the connotations of the colors associated with the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Discovering Traditional Sonnet Forms
Students read sonnets, charting the poems' characteristics and using their observations to deduce traditional sonnet forms. They then write original sonnets, using a poem they have analyzed as a model.
Argument, Persuasion, or Propaganda? Analyzing World War II Posters
Students analyze World War II posters, as a group and then independently, to explore how argument, persuasion and propaganda differ.
A Significant Influence: Describing an Important Teacher in Your Life
In this project, students write tributes to teachers who have made a profound difference in their lives then publish their work in a class collection.
Building Vietnam War Scavenger Hunts through Web-Based Inquiry
Students research the effects of the Vietnam war on a specific group of people who were involved. They then create Internet scavenger hunts to share with the class.