Bring the vocabulary of film to life through the processes of filmmaking. Students learn terminology and techniques simultaneously as they plan, film, and edit a short video.
3-2-1 Vocabulary: Learning Filmmaking Vocabulary by Making Films
Creating an Online Community Through Electronic Portfolios
Students publish their work in an electronic portfolio, which enables them to respond to each other's content online.
Using American Sign Language to Improve Comprehension and Vocabulary
American Sign Language is combined with the hilarious poetry and pictures of Sam's Sandwich, a lift-the-flap book, to engage all types of learners in acquiring key vocabulary.
Using Technology to Analyze and Illustrate Symbolism in Night
Images have power—they can trigger memories or symbolize abstract ideas. Students put the power of images to the test as they analyze symbolism in Night and create symbolic photomontages.
Rooting Out Meaning: Morpheme Match-Ups in the Primary Grades
In this lesson, students use morphemesEnglish words that have been formed by combining common word partsto explore word meanings.
How-To Writing: Motivating Students to Write for a Real Purpose
It's not easy surviving fourth grade (or third or fifth)! In this lesson, students brainstorm survival tips for future fourth graders and incorporate those tips into an essay.
Delicious, Tasty, Yummy: Enriching Writing with Adjectives and Synonyms
Students thoroughly explore identifying synonyms and adjectives before using them to add variety and interest to their own writing.
Traveling the Road to Freedom Through Research and Historical Fiction
Students learn how to walk a mile in someone else's shoes by reading historical fiction about the Underground Railroad.
Lights, Camera, Action...Music: Critiquing Films Using Sight and Sound
Movie music and magic set the scene for this lesson in which students analyze a scene from Good Morning, Vietnam and then create a scene of their own.
Dynamite Diamante Poetry
Introduce gerunds and review nouns, adjectives, and verbs through engaging read-alouds; then apply these concepts through collaborative word-sorting and poetry-writing activities.
Word Study with Henry and Mudge
Henry and Mudge is used in this lesson to build students' word recognition through rereading, high-frequency word banks, word studies, and writing.
Reading, Writing, Haiku Hiking! A Class Book of Picturesque Poems
Students learn haiku
write descriptive poems
and share with the class.
MyTube: Changing the World With Video Public Service Announcements
This assignment will go viral with students as they think about the meanings of words and images in public service announcements from YouTube before creating a PSA of their own.
BioBags: Linking Literature and Life
Students create BioBags, a collection of texts that mark special times in their lives. BioBags provide a way for students to share a variety of events and texts.
Blogging With Photovoice: Sharing Pictures in an Integrated Classroom
Make the most of your students' diverse ability levels and experience with a prewriting activity in which they describe an abstract idea using blogging and photographs that they have taken.
The Magnetism of Language: Parts of Speech, Poetry, and Word Play
What wonderful ways words work! The parts of speech are the highlight of this lesson in which students identify parts of speech in a nonsensical poem and then create their own wild and wacky rhymes.
Shared Experiences, Individual Impressions: Buddies Create PowerPoint Stories
Stories and snapshots of school-related experiences are the perfect sources of inspiration for students as they create PowerPoint presentations with the help of an older student.
Comparing a Literary Work to Its Film Interpretation
Students will really get into the swing of things as they analyze the text and film versions of Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Pit and the Pendulum."
Crit Lit for Kids: From Critical Consciousness to Service Learning
Students take their ideas from the classroom page to the community pavement when they participate in a service-learning project based on their multimedia presentations.
Read a Song: Using Song Lyrics for Reading and Writing
This lesson will be music to the students' ears when they hear that they get to read song lyrics and compose original lyrics for a familiar song.