Students prepare an already published scholarly article for presentation, with an emphasis on identification of the author's thesis and argument structure.
Modeling Academic Writing Through Scholarly Article Presentations
Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization
After exploring Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, students create their own audio dramatization of a text they have read.
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.
Literary Scrapbooks Online: An Electronic Reader-Response Project
Students capture scraps of information from a variety of Web resources and use them to create an electronic scrapbook. Emphasis is placed on evaluating and citing resources.
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.
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.
Giving Voice to Students Through "This I Believe" Podcasts
Students write and record their own essays for a class blog by first completing a series of activities designed to get them thinking and writing about their experiences.
I've Got the Literacy Blues
Students will be singing the blues in this lesson in which they identify themes from "The Gift of the Magi" and write and present blues poetry based on those themes.
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.
Music and Me: Visual Representations of Lyrics to Popular Music
Students will whistle while they work on this lesson, creating a photomontage movie of their interpretation of a favorite song's lyrics that will end everyone's day on a high note.