Students rework their forgotten/abandoned drafts by cutting and covering up selected words. By creatively manipulating text, they explore portal writing, a strategy for envisioning a new story or story direction.
Cut up, Cover up, and Come Away with Ideas for Writing!
Note Writing in the Primary Classroom
This lesson provides a wealth of ideas for using notes in the classroom to promote authentic writing among children.
The Passion of Punctuation
Using published writers' texts and students' own writing, this unit explores emotions that are associated with the artful and deliberate use of commas, semicolons, colons, and exclamation points (end-stop marks of punctuation).
Literature Response in Primary Classrooms
This step-by-step literature response template for use with read-alouds asks students to use drawing and writing to respond to increasingly-complex prompts which address literary elements as well as personal connections.
Power of Picture Books, The: Using Content Area Literature in Middle School
Featuring descriptions and activities for fifty exceptional titles, Mary Jo Fresch and Peggy Harkins offer a wealth of ideas for harnessing the power of picture books to improve reading and writing in the content areas.
Teaching with Zooming Slideshows through Prezi
Through Prezi, a web application, students create "zooming" presentations for various purposes, such as presenting research, defending an opinion, or sharing a digital story.
Language Learners in the English Classroom
This book provides practical, research-based strategies that can help secondary-level English language learners meet the challenges of both language and content learning.
I've Got It Covered! Creating Magazine Covers to Summarize Texts
Start the presses! Catchy titles, eye-popping graphics, and attractive fonts are all on students' agendas in this lesson as they create magazine covers to summarize a topic.
That's Not Fair! Examining Civil Liberties With the U.S. Supreme Court
Students have the right to have fun in this lesson in which they create a PowerPoint presentation about civil rights and the Supreme Court.
Q is for Duck: Using Alphabet Books With Struggling Writers
A is for zoo? Q is for duck? The alphabet as students know it is transformed when students create a class book that contains clever associations for each letter of the alphabet.
Name Talk: Exploring Letter-Sound Knowledge in the Primary Classroom
Students demonstrate their letter/sound knowledge by working with name cards and sharing observations about their classmates' names, giving teachers an opportunity to assess knowledge in a meaningful context.
Tell Me Your Story: Video-Inspired Vocabulary Writing
Students watch a sample of artistic video clips online and respond through creative writing while using the vocabulary words they are currently studying.
3-2-1 Vocabulary: Learning Filmmaking Vocabulary by Making Films
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.
When I Was Young In...A Literature to Language Experience
Past meets present in this lesson in which students practice verb tense when they write personal short stories that they then publish in a flip book.
Using Pictures to Build Schema for Social Studies Content
How do you read an image? Students find out in this lesson in which they "read" several images of the Boston Massacre to better understand the event and recognize effects of propaganda.
Let's Read It Again: Comprehension Strategies for English-Language Learners
Help Spanish-speaking English-language learners unlock the mysteries of their new language by using a bilingual book to recognize unfamiliar words and construct meaning from the text.