Students first analyze Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing," then use Whitman's poem as a model as they create their own list poems.
Walt Whitman as a Model Poet: "I Hear My School Singing"
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Avoiding Sexist Language by Using Gender-Fair Pronouns
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students engage in a brief writing assignment that concretely illustrates how language and gender stereotyping interact causally.
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Breaking the Rules with Sentence Fragments
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Though teachers usually caution students against using sentence fragments, Edgar Schuster's work demonstrates that professional writers often use fragments effectively. This lesson helps students understand that there are reasons that they can and should use sentence fragments to become effective writers.
Grades
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Style-Shifting: Examining and Using Formal and Informal Language Styles
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students observe how language features vary when shifting from an informal to a formal style or vice versa. By engaging in style shifting in both speech and writing, students become aware of how we all change language styles depending on the contexts in which we are speaking or writing.
Grades
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From Quantitative to Qualitative: Writing Descriptions of Data From Tables
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students develop quantitative reasoning and critical thinking by analyzing descriptions tables for content, language, and organization with a particular focus on verb tense selection, and then writing descriptions of tables themselves.
Grades
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Analyzing Grammar Pet Peeves
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
By analyzing Dear Abby's "rant" about bad grammar usage, students become aware that attitudes about race, social class, moral and ethical character, and "proper" language use are intertwined.
Grades
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Semicolons and Swift: Analyzing Punctuation and Meaning
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
This lesson will help punctuation make a mark on students as they read Jonathan Swift's work and analyze his use of punctuation.