This guide shares the steps to take to get more students talking by dividing the group into speaking and non-speaking circles.
Conducting Inner-Outer Circle Discussions
Consensus Decision Making
This strategy guide introduces Consensus Decision Making, a method for facilitating and engaging students in a critical discussion of the central ideas of a text.
Teaching with Zooming Slideshows through Prezi
Through Prezi, a web application, students create "zooming" presentations for various purposes, such as presenting research, defending an opinion, or sharing a digital story.
Bringing Lessons to Life with Animoto
Using Animoto, a free Web 2.0 tool, students can develop short digital videos that include music, photos, video clips, and text as well as share their creations electronically.
Speak to Me: Teaching with Voki
Through Voki, a Web 2.0 tool, students create customizable avatars for class presentations for various purposes, such as presenting biographical information, expressing an opinion, or reading a poem.
Go Public!: Encouraging Student Writers to Publish
Intended for middle and high school teachers, Go Public! offers specific writing ideas and classroom activities to help students develop the confidence and ability to publish in a wide market.
Talking in Class: Using Discussion to Enhance Teaching and Learning
The authors guide high school teachers in developing skills in promoting and facilitating authentic discussion in the English language arts classroom.
Language Learners in the English Classroom
This book provides practical, research-based strategies that can help secondary-level English language learners meet the challenges of both language and content learning.
Tracking the Ways Writers Develop Heroes and Villains
Everyone knows that Star Wars character Darth Vader is a villain. This lesson asks students to explore how they know such things about heroes and villains they encounter in texts.
Constructing New Understanding Through Choral Readings of Shakespeare
After reading The Tempest or any other play by William Shakespeare, students work in small groups to plan, compose, and perform a choral reading based on a character or theme.
All's Well that Sells Well: A Creative Introduction to Shakespeare
Students compare attending a performance at The Globe Theater with attending a modern theater production or movie. They then create a commercial for an Elizabethan audience promoting a modern product.
Gaining Background for the Graphic Novel Persepolis: A WebQuest on Iran
To prepare students for reading the graphic novel Persepolis, this lesson uses a WebQuest to focus students' research on finding reliable information about Iran before and during the Islamic Revolution.
Connecting Past and Present: A Local Research Project
In this unit, students become active archivists, gathering photos, artifacts, and stories for a museum exhibit that highlights one decade in their school's history.
Analyzing and Podcasting About Images of Oscar Wilde
Students analyze images of Oscar Wilde used to publicize his 1882 American lecture tour. They then compare a caricature to another researched image, sharing this analysis in a podcast.
Creating a Persuasive Podcast
Students learn how to get their voice out on the web when they research issues important to them and compose a persuasive podcast to post online.
Thoughtful Threads: Sparking Rich Online Discussions
Today's students love chatting online with friends. This lesson combines that love with literature. Students form literature circles and have meaningful online discussions about a literary work.
What Are My Rights? Exploring and Writing About the Constitution
Students speak up in this lesson about rights, examining the Constitution in the context of issues that affect their everyday lives.