Students study Chaucer's Canterbury Tales not just for its rich language, but also for the insights it provides into the Middle Ages. Using wikis, students collaborate to study both literature and history on their own terms. They create meaning and build information networks using tools Chaucer himself would have loved.
Exploring The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales using Wikis
Using Microblogging and Social Networking to Explore Characterization and Style
Students use social networking sites to trace the development of characters by assuming the persona of a character on the class Ning and sending a set number of tweets, or status updates.
There Are No Small Parts: Minor Characters in David Copperfield
This lesson capitalizes on students' interest in social networking by asking students to build an online profile for a minor character in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield.
Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia
Students work together to create their own utopias, using blogs as the primary source of publication.
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.
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.
Weaving the Multigenre Web
Students analyze the elements of a novel in many different genres and then hyperlink these pieces together on student-constructed Websites.
A Tale of a Few Text Messages: A Character Study of A Tale of Two Cities
Students use A Tale of Two Cities to explore relationships, plot points, character traits, and background by writing text messages between characters within the novel.
Stapleless Book
The Stapleless Book can be used for taking notes while reading, making picture books, collecting facts, or creating vocabulary booklets . . . the possibilities are endless!
Facilitating Participation with Silent Conversations
This guide introduces silent conversations, a collaborative learning technique that has students
thinking, sharing, and reflecting about important questions—but through writing rather than talk.
Reading on the Go
In this Strategy Guide, learn how to prepare yourself and your students for reading and note-taking in mobile environments.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Teen Literature and Technology
In this episode, you'll hear about books that "break the rules of writing" by telling stories in the form of emails, blog entries, and instant messages.
Celebrate National Library Week!
Students learn more about libraries as part of National Library Week.