It's important to "hook" readers at a story's beginning, but it's equally important to keep them interested. In this lesson, students learn to write effective conclusions to their own stories.
Once They're Hooked, Reel Them In: Writing Good Endings
Building a Learning Community: Crafting Rules for the Classroom
Students will learn to mind their ps and qs in this lesson on etiquette and appropriate behavior in the classroom.
Digital Reflections: Expressing Understanding of Content Through Photography
Striking images can leave lasting impressions on viewers. In this lesson, students make textselfworld connections to a nature- or science-related topic as they collaboratively design a multimedia presentation.
A-Z: Learning About the Alphabet Book Genre
Students increase their understanding of alphabet books by participating in a variety of reading and writing activities.
Two Thumbs Up! Get Students Writing and Publishing Book Reviews
Students evaluate book reviews written by other children, discussing their components and effectiveness, and write reviews of favorite books to record on video or post online.
Fishing for Readers: Identifying and Writing Effective Opening "Hooks"
Good writers "hook" their readers in the very first sentences. In this lesson, students learn how to cast an attention-grabbing hook in their writing to effectively draw in readers' attention.
Media Literacy: Examining the World of Television Teens
Pop culture and the classroom collide in this lesson when students go behind the scenes to analyze a television series for characterization to use in an original television show proposal.
Slipping, Sliding, Tumbling: Reinforcing Cause and Effect Through Diamante Poems
Writing, revising, and publishing are just a few of the tasks students will complete in order to take their cause-and-effect diamante poems from an idea to a reality.
Music and Me: Visual Representations of Lyrics to Popular Music
Students will whistle while they work on this lesson, creating a photomontage movie of their interpretation of a favorite song's lyrics that will end everyone's day on a high note.
Great American Inventors: Using Nonfiction to Learn About Technology Inventions
Who are the people behind the world's greatest inventions? Students read biographies of a terrific trio of American inventors and create presentations that highlight how their inventions from the past impacted the future.
Using Picture Books to Explore Identity, Stereotyping, and Discrimination
Students analyze the concepts of identity, stereotyping, and discrimination by reading picture books; identify how these concepts are dealt with in each book; and discuss concrete actions to stop discrimination.
My Life/Your Life: A Look at Your Parents' Past
Past and present come together when students interview their parents and create a skit that compares their parents' experiences as middle schoolers with the students' own lives.
Blast Off! Vocabulary Instruction Using a Virtual Moon Trip
3, 2, 1... Blast off! Students learn new vocabulary by taking a virtual field trip to the moon, read-alouds, creating a picture dictionary, and completing a final writing activity.
Play Ball! Encouraging Critical Thinking Through Baseball Questions
Cooperation and critical thinking are the name of the game as students use baseball facts they find online to create trivia questions for a class Jeopardy game.
Storytelling in the Social Studies Classroom
People make the past come alive as students research and then share stories about famous Americans who promoted democratic ideals.
Exploring Cause and Effect Using Expository Texts About Natural Disasters
Students explore the nature and structure of expository texts that focus on cause and effect and apply what they learned using graphic organizers and writing paragraphs to outline cause-and-effect relationships.
Using Web-Based Bookmarks to Conduct Internet Research
The important thing about this lesson is… that it connects literature and science. The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown provides a model for original student poems about a content area topic. Web-based bookmarks guide students to appropriate sites on the topic, and a graphic organizer helps them focus their research.
A Race With Grace: Sports Poetry in Motion
In this lesson, athletics, aesthetics, and poetics intersect in new ways as developing literacy learners experiment together with the forms of language.
Using Folk Tales: Vowel Influences on the Letter G
Gentle, gigantic, gracefuldo these g words describe the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk? Students will explore the hard and soft g sounds by studying fairy tales and animals.
Can You Convince Me? Developing Persuasive Writing
Through a classroom game and resource handouts, students learn about the techniques used in persuasive oral arguments and apply them to independent persuasive writing activities.