Students learn about the life and music of John Lennon, write a short story from their lives integrating lyrics from some of their favorite songs, and create a class book of stories.
Songs of Our Lives: Using Lyrics to Write Stories
Facilitating Student-Led Seminar Discussions with The Piano Lesson
August Wilson's play The Piano Lesson invites students to ask a number of questions—big
and small. Students learn how to create effective discussion questions and then put them to use in student-led discussions.
Color My World: Expanding Meaning Potential through Media
Using different writing/drawing materials (e.g., markers, color pencils, pastels, etc.), students learn how to communicate different moods and/or feelings to support their written ideas and how authors do the same through their work.
Comparing Portrayals of Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Photography and Literature
In this lesson, students analyze similarities and differences among depictions of slavery in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Frederick Douglass' Narrative, and nineteenth century photographs of slaves. Students formulate their analysis of the role of art and fiction, as they attempt to reliably reflect social ills, in a final essay.
An Exploration of The Crucible through Seventeenth-Century Portraits
In this lesson, students incorporate analyses of characters from The Crucible with examinations of original seventeenth-century portraits of Puritans to create a visual portrait of the character. The project culminates in a "Portrait Gallery Walk" where students present and defend their artwork.
I Have a Dream: Exploring Nonviolence in Young Adult Texts
Students will identify how Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of nonviolent conflict-resolution is reinterpreted in modern texts. Homework is differentiated to prompt discussion on how nonviolence is portrayed through characterization and conflict. Students will be formally assessed on a thesis essay that addresses the Six Kingian Principles of Nonviolence.
Exploring The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales using Wikis
Students study Chaucer's Canterbury Tales not just for its rich language, but also for the insights it provides into the Middle Ages. Using wikis, students collaborate to study both literature and history on their own terms. They create meaning and build information networks using tools Chaucer himself would have loved.
Utilizing Visual Images for Creating and Conveying Setting in Written Text
This lesson supports third-through-sixth grade students as they communicate story setting to their readers through the use of visual image prompts. Activities include individual and cooperative learning group work, as well as whole class discussion.
Creating Psychological Profiles of Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
Students explore the motivation behind characters' actions in To Kill A Mockingbird by creating psychological profiles for characters from the novel.
Texting a Response to Lord of the Flies
Students use Lord of the Flies to explore communication styles and techniques by writing text messages from one of the novel's characters to an imagined audience off the island.
Using Microblogging and Social Networking to Explore Characterization and Style
Students use social networking sites to trace the development of characters by assuming the persona of a character on the class Ning and sending a set number of tweets, or status updates.
Creating Better Presentation Slides through Glance Media and Billboard Design
This lesson introduces the concept of "glance media" through an analysis of billboards. Students apply design concepts by creating a slide presentation to accompany an existing historical speech.
Persuasive Techniques in Advertising
Students will be introduced to persuasive techniques used in advertising, analyze advertising, and explore the concepts of demographics, marketing for a specific audience, and dynamic advertising.
A "Brief, Urgent Message": Theme in Slaughterhouse-Five
As a culminating activity for Slaughterhouse-Five, students make a compilation album (a CD with 6-8 tracks) that reflects their analysis, understanding, and reaction to the ideas in the novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
Tragic Love: Introducing Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
This lesson introduces students to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet by having them examine the ideas of tragedy and tragic love by connecting the story to their own lives.
Language and Power in The Handmaid's Tale and the World
Students work in small groups to examine Margaret Atwood's use of and observations about language in The Handmaid's Tale. Through this activity, students discover and articulate overarching thematic trends in the book and then can extend their observations about official or political language to examples from their own world.
Sonic Patterns: Exploring Poetic Techniques Through Close Reading
Students develop close reading skills connecting sound with sense in the poem "Those Winter Sundays," and write an original text that reflects their new learning.
Narrative Structure and Perspectives in Toni Morrison's Beloved
Using Beloved as a model of a work with multiple narrative perspectives, students use a visualizing activity and close reading to consider ways in which subjective values shape contradictory representations.
There Are No Small Parts: Minor Characters in David Copperfield
This lesson capitalizes on students' interest in social networking by asking students to build an online profile for a minor character in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield.
Joining the Conversation about Young Adult Literature
Students create a persuasive case calling for the adoption of a particular young adult literature title into their school's language arts curriculum by writing letters or speeches.