Students read thematically related texts, scaffolded from simple to complex, to help them gather necessary concept vocabulary and background knowledge in a content area. They then write acrostic poems to organize and present their learning in a creative way.
Writing Acrostic Poems with Thematically Related Texts in the Content Areas
Highlighting Out-of-School Language Expertise with Pop Culture Dictionaries
Students compose dictionary entries for words and phrases from pop culture texts (e.g., television shows, movies, lyrics, YouTube videos), connecting their definitions to their personal use of the terms.
Exploring Perspectives on Desegregation Using Brown Girl Dreaming
Students read and discuss a selection of poems from Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming to explore varying views on the process of desegregation in America.
A-B-C: It's Easy as 1-2-3 to Make Math Alphabet Books
Using the Alphabet Organizer app, students create alphabet books to review math terms.
Proverbs: At Home and around the World
In this lesson, students work with proverbs from home and from around the world, exploring how these maxims are tied to a culture's values and everyday experience.
Charlotte is Wise, Patient, and Caring: Adjectives and Character Traits
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.
Action Is Character: Exploring Character Traits with Adjectives
Students must "become" a character in a novel in order to describe themselves and other characters using powerful adjectives.
Become a Character: Adjectives, Character Traits, and Perspective
Students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using lists of accurate, powerful adjectives.
Draw a Math Story: From the Concrete to the Symbolic
Students create math stories by first drawing, then writing, and finally using math symbols to show addition or subtraction.
Powerful Writing: Description in Creating Monster Trading Cards
Students create their own monster trading cards using "powerful," vivid language to describe their creatures.
Persuasive Writing: What Can Writing in Family Message Journals Do for Students?
This lesson engages children in using writing to their families as a persuasive tool to get what they want and need.
How Big Are Martin's Big Words? Thinking Big about the Future
Inspired by the book Martin's Big Words, students explore information on Dr. King to think about his "big" words, then they write about their own "big" words and dreams.
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues
Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.
Family Message Journals Teach Many Purposes for Writing
This lesson encourages children to explore authentic reasons for writing by writing messages to their family in a family message journal.
She Did What? Revising for Connotation
Did she walk, skip, amble, dance? In this minilesson, students explore connotation by acting out and revising the simple sentence "She walked into the room."
Avalanche, Aztek, or Bravada? A Connotation Minilesson
Students examine familiar car names for underlying connotations then proceed through a series of steps, increasing their control over language, until they select words with powerful connotations in their own writing.
Native Americans Today
This lesson challenges students' views of Native Americans as a vanished people by asking them to compare their prior knowledge with information they gather while reading about contemporary Native Americans.
Poetry from Prose
Working in small groups, students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading.
Learning to Learn with Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster
Modeled on the activities in Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster, a picture book, students combine vocabulary exploration with word play by planning their own vocabulary parade.
Fairy Tales from Life
Picture books provide the basis for an analysis of fairy tale elements before students write their own original tales.