After taking a field trip that students document using mobile app Instagram, students become new reporters as they use the interactive Printing Press to tell about their experiences.

Using haiku, students focus on themes in literature and demonstrate their understanding of an author's message. Writing haiku to accompany an analytical paper hones analytical skills and fosters creative expression.

Students learn how to play "devil's advocate" by evaluating sports reforms, reading an engaging non-fiction article, and participating in a town hall meeting in which they represent the interests of various stakeholders to generate debate and develop critical thinking skills.

Using the Haiku Poem App or the Haiku Poem Interactive, students summarize papers they have written using the traditional format of a haiku.

Using a mobile app or Interactive activity, students write haikus describing various types of clouds that they have studied.

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.

In this lesson, students develop the cognitive tool of criteria development for discussing the aesthetics of poetry and music.

Reporting on an informational book doesn't have to be boring! Instead of the traditional book report format, students create newspapers using a Printing Press interactive to share what they have learned from reading informational books.

After students write persuasive essays, use this lesson to challenge them to summarize their essays concisely by creating five-slide presentations.

Students improve a slide show by removing pictures. Their reasons for cutting pictures are translated into revision guidelines for cutting unnecessary words and sections from their rough drafts.

Inspired by their curiosity about animals, students work together to research an animal of their choice and present the information they gather to an authentic audience.

Students are guided through an informal exploration of nonfiction texts and child-oriented Websites, learning browsing and skimming techniques for the purpose of gathering interesting information.

In this minilesson, students organize information they compile while doing research for a written report on a selected topic.

Students find examples of adjectives in a shared reading. Then students "become" major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using powerful adjectives.

Students build classroom community as they get to know each other and their teacher better by sharing what they like to do outside school.

Students analyze Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne to determine how an author keeps an audience interested by creating voice and to applying that knowledge to their own writing.

Students create a personalized biography for their reading buddy, and each child is the author, illustrator, and editor.

Students learn the importance of crediting others for their words and ideas, and then learn the paraphrasing and citation skills necessary to avoid plagiarism.

Students are guided through the process of taking notes while reading factual information, then turning those notes into new sentences and paragraphs written in their own words.