Students put their heads together in a poetry circle to learn and practice different forms of poetry.
Poetry Circles: Generative Writing Loops Help Students Craft Verse
Story Elements Alive!
What's in a narrative? Students find out in this lesson in which they explore four narrative elements—setting, characters, problem/solution, and plot, through purpose-driven read-alouds and independent reading.
Family Ties: Making Connections to Improve Reading Comprehension
Families are all about connections between people. In this lesson, students read three books about different families and make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections to those texts.
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.
Using Greeting Cards to Motivate Students and Enhance Literacy Skills
Imagination and illustration are the key in this lesson in which students read and create their own greeting cards.
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.
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.
A World of Readers: Libraries Around the World
Bookworms will enjoy the bytes they find in this lesson as they research and share information about online library services in places around the world.
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.
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.
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.
Guided Comprehension in Action: Teaching Summarizing With the Bio-Cube
Students learn the ins and outs of writing biographies by researching a contemporary or historical figure and writing a summary.
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.
Developing Story Structure With Paper-Bag Skits
Lights, camera, action, and a bit of mystery! In this lesson, students use mystery props in a skit bag to create and perform in short, impromptu skits.
Casting Shadows Across Literacy and Science
Shadows, shadows, everywhere! In this lesson, students read fiction, informational text, and poetry about shadows to extend their knowledge of the concept before casting their own shadow poetry.
Zines for Kids: Multigenre Texts About Media Icons
Special edition! Students use ReadWriteThink tools to create magazines about prominent figures using a variety of writing genres and styles.
Phonic Generalizations in Chrysanthemum
Students learn about word families by reading Kevin Henkes's book Chrysanthemum, identifying words with certain vowel pair endings, and reading words with similar endings.
Learning Centers: From Shared to Independent Practice
Seven blind mice—see how they spend each day of the week in this lesson that uses the book Seven Blind Mice to guide students through shared reading, writing, and listening activities.
Lights, Camera, Action: Interviewing a Book Character
Students get the inside scoop on a story when they create interview questions and answers for characters in the books they read.
Using a Predictable Text to Teach High-Frequency Words
After reading an engaging yet predictable text about a child looking for his cat, students use a similar format and high-frequency words to craft tales about their own lost pets.