Y'all set down a spell and learn ‘bout dialects!" In other words, your students will use The Color Purple to explore dialect and how it reveals information about the characters.
What Did They Say? Dialect in The Color Purple
Word Maps: Developing Critical and Analytical Thinking About Literary Characters
Students read "After Twenty Years" by O. Henry, use a word map to identify characters' qualities or traits, discuss the characters' feelings and actions, and reflect upon these in journals.
A High-Interest Novel Helps Struggling Readers Confront Bullying in Schools
Students read a work of realistic fiction about bullying and gain understanding through writing, Readers Theatre, and discussion.
Tell Me Your Story: Video-Inspired Vocabulary Writing
Students watch a sample of artistic video clips online and respond through creative writing while using the vocabulary words they are currently studying.
Show-Me Sentences
This lesson teaches students how to revise dull "telling" sentences into vivid, descriptive "showing" sentences.
Playlist for Holden: Character Analysis With Music and Lyrics
Students compile a playlist of 10 songs representing a literary character and explain their choices based on the book's dialogue, plot, conflict, and resolution.
e-Book Reading and Response: Innovative Ways to Engage with Texts
Students in grades 5 through 12 read and respond to electronic books by using e-book tools and features, including digital note-taking capabilities.
The Pros and Cons of Discussion
Students use a Discussion Web to engage in meaningful discussion of the question, "Are people equal?"
Pairing Fiction With Poetry and Performance
Make connections across genres and across cultures to engage students in the study of literary voice and themes. Comprehension skills and vocabulary also come into play, especially for English language learners, as students read a novel and related poems, then write and perform original poems related to the novel.
Story Map
The Story Map interactive is designed to assist students in prewriting and postreading activities by focusing on the key elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution.
Flip Book
The Flip Book is designed to allow users to type and illustrate tabbed flip books up to ten pages long. Students and teachers can use the flip book for taking notes while reading, making picture books, collecting facts, or creating question and answer booklets.
Sharon Draper was born on this day in 1952.
Students read a book from one of Draper's trilogies and then meet to discuss their book with students have read the other two books.
Author Matt de la Peña was born today.
Students use an essay by de la Peña as a model for writing their own literacy autobiography.
Today is World Read Aloud Day.
Students celebrate the power of words by reading aloud to their classmates and spreading the word of global literacy to their friends and family.
Author Tim O'Brien was born on this day.
After reading O'Brien's story "A True War Story" from The Things They Carried, students choose a powerful event from their own lives and map it using the Timeline Tool. They then create a fictional version of this event.
In 1931, Toni Morrison was born.
After retelling a familiar fable, students discover the differences in one of Morrison's retellings of a fable.
Jonathan Swift was born on this day in 1667.
Students explore satire and parody in television and film, advertising, and journalism and create a display that highlights their findings.
Black Beauty author Anna Sewell was born in 1820.
Through Sewell's novel, students explore the cruelty to animals and extend the discussion to current events, eventually presenting the information.
The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850.
Students brainstorm the possible meaning of the title The Scarlet Letter and what its significance might be. The class' responses are returned to once the reading has begun to see how their definitions have changed.
Beware the Ides of March!
Students discuss and categorize superstitions, define a superstition, and compare the similarities and difference between proverbs and superstitions.