This lesson will help punctuation make a mark on students as they read Jonathan Swift's work and analyze his use of punctuation.

Students will have a blast as they use descriptive language to write about an "explosive" and dramatic moment in their lives.

Students write descriptions of characters, incorporate new vocabulary words, practice using simile and metaphor, engage in peer editing, and post their revised descriptions on the walls for a matching game.

There's a world of writers out there, and in this lesson students discover them as they listen to presentations from local writers and learn about what, why, and how they write in their day-to-day lives.

The classroom becomes a stage in this interactive lesson in which students sing, act, and design comic strips to learn the meanings and spellings of common homophones.

Students use word webs to choose synonyms for generic adjectives and to learn to adjust their word usage for different contexts.

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.

Through a study of Langston Hughes' poetry, students connect his writing to his place in history.

Students manipulate sentences from books or magazines to examine changes in meaning and parts of speech.

Based on the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson introduces students to the strategy of evaluating, using the Meeting of the Minds technique.

Based on the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson introduces students to the comprehension strategy of knowing how words work.

"2-4-6-8, students will be spelling great" in this lesson that teaches the y rule for adding suffixes through cheering the spelling of words aloud, word sorts, and writing stories.

Students are introduced to question-answer relationships (QARs). Using the QAR strategy, students identify different types of questions and learn how to determine the appropriate response for each question type.

Students learn to use the QuIP (questions into paragraphs) comprehension strategy to organize information and then synthesize it in writing.

Based on the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson introduces students to the comprehension strategy of monitoring.

Guided comprehension moves your middle-grade students beyond decoding to become successful, independent readers. The sketch-to-stretch strategy encourages students to use "brain TV" to help them understand a text through visualization.

Guided comprehension moves your students beyond decoding to become independent readers. Generating questions to guide reading helps readers make connections with the text and supports independent comprehension of new texts.

Based on the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson introduces students to the comprehension strategy of previewing.

What does the world look like through a javelina's eyes? Students become javelinas in this lesson when they analyze a character and write from his or her perspective.