Students create a soundtrack for a novel that they have read, as they engage in such traditional reading strategies as predicting, visualizing, and questioning.
On a Musical Note: Exploring Reading Strategies by Creating a Soundtrack
Star-Crossed Lovers Online: Romeo and Juliet for a Digital Age
Explore the modern significance of an older text, such as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, by asking students to create their own modern interpretation of specific events from the drama.
Once Upon a Time Rethought: Writing Fractured Fairy Tales
Students read and analyze fairy tales, identifying their common elements. They then write their own "fractured" fairy tales by changing one of the literary elements found in the original.
Opening the Door for Reading: Sharing Favorite Texts to Build Community
In this lesson, students build classroom community by exploring environmental print and a teacher-created display that focuses on a favorite book. They then create and share their own presentations.
Cooking Up Descriptive Language: Designing Restaurant Menus
Students explore the menu genre by analyzing existing menus from local restaurants. They review adjectives and descriptive writing and then work in groups to create their own custom menus.
Literary Parodies: Exploring a Writer's Style through Imitation
This lesson asks students to analyze the features of a poet's work then create their own poems based on the original model.
Focusing Reader Response Through Vocabulary Analysis
Students suggest and categorize words that they associate with a novel they have recently read, ranging from details about the plot to feelings about a character.
Focus on First Lines: Increasing Comprehension through Prediction Strategies
Students examine opening sentences of texts they will read during a unit or course and make predictions. They return to their predictions throughout the course as they read the texts.
Analyzing Symbolism, Plot, and Theme in Death and the Miser
Students apply the analytical skills that they use when reading literature to an exploration of the underlying meaning and symbolism in Hieronymous Bosch's early Renaissance painting Death and the Miser.
Connotation, Character, and Color Imagery in The Great Gatsby
Students explore the connotations of the colors associated with the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Discovering Traditional Sonnet Forms
Students read sonnets, charting the poems' characteristics and using their observations to deduce traditional sonnet forms. They then write original sonnets, using a poem they have analyzed as a model.
Ferocious Fighting Fish: An Ocean Unit Exploring Beginning Word Sounds
Focus students' attention on alliteration in this ocean-themed unit. Students explore alliteration in framing texts then compose their own class book to explore figurative language in their own writing.
Completing the Circle: The Craft of Circular Plot Structure
Students identify, explore and apply the elements of circle plot structures to their own stories by using graphic organizers, reading and writing stories, and using checklists to assess their work.
Bridging Literature and Mathematics by Visualizing Mathematical Concepts
During interactive read-aloud sessions, students identify how an author conveys mathematical information about animals' sizes and abilities. They then conduct research projects focusing on the same mathematical concepts.
Exploring Sets through Math-Related Book Pairs
After reading two math-related books, students investigate their home and school environments to find examples of objects that come in sets and then create their own books on sets.
Reading Literature in Translation: Beowulf as a Case Study
Using several translations of the same passage of Beowulf, this lesson introduces students to the idea that translation is not an objective practice, but that it involves "imaginative reconstruction."
An Introduction to Beowulf: Language and Poetics
Students are introduced to Old English and the poetic devices of alliteration, kenning, and compounding in preparation for reading the epic poem Beowulf.
The History Behind Song Lyrics
Students research the items listed in the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel, noting their historical relevance, and then document their findings using an online chart.
Exploring Satire with The Simpsons
This lesson uses an example from popular culture, The Simpsons, as a means to explore the literary technique of satire and to analyze a satirical work.
Exploring Satire with Shrek
The movie Shrek introduces the satirical techniques of exaggeration, incongruity, reversal, and parody. Students brainstorm fairy tale characteristics, identify satirical techniques, then create their own satirical versions of fairy tales.