As a class, students evaluate a nonfiction or realistic fiction text for its cultural relevance to themselves personally and as a group.

Students write theme poems in a flash using the picture book Flicker Flash by Joan Bransfield Graham and the online, interactive Theme Poems tool.

Students explore the idea of "crossing boundaries" through bilingual, spoken-word poetry, culminating in a poetry slam at school or in the community.

Students complete a family survey and plan a website to share the responses, increasing their understanding and appreciation of their own families and cultures, and their classmates as well.

Engage students in content area reading with the Textmasters strategy, which allows students to collaborate with their peers in different roles that enable better understanding of the content.

Students in the 21st century need to build background knowledge and fill in textual gaps to enter the unfamiliar world of "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street."

Spark the engagement of English-language learners or reluctant readers with the graphic novel Maus. The visual information provided by the genre serves as a support for reading and critical engagement.

Students learn how to get their voice out on the web when they research issues important to them and compose a persuasive podcast to post online.

This lesson will be turning heads and pages as students learn how to choose appropriate books for independent reading exercises and later evaluate their choices.

Students participate in learning clubs, select content area topics, and draw on texts—including websites, printed material, video, and music—to investigate their topics, and share their learning using similar media.

Today's students love chatting online with friends. This lesson combines that love with literature. Students form literature circles and have meaningful online discussions about a literary work.

Students form literature circles, read Esperanza Rising or Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan, use a Critical Thinking Map to discuss social issues, and use a class wiki.

In this lesson, students use blogs to hold discussions about the effect of the factors of culture, history, and environment on Latino poetry.

Doctors, astrophysicists, and daycare providers are only some of the careers that will be explored in this lesson in which students research careers and publish occupational summaries about them.

Students investigate audio texts of mystery stories, evaluate them in terms of both literary and audio qualities, and create Readers Theatre scripts, which they use to record their own podcasts.

Students will go batty about the three writing strategies they learn in this lesson centered on Nicola Davies' Bat Loves the Night.

C is for Culture in this lesson in which students research a culture different from their own and compile an alphabet book that showcases cultural symbols for each letter of the alphabet.

Students will walk a mile in the shoes of Solomon Singer as they learn how to use flashbacks, flash-aheads, and internal dialogue to develop realistic characters.

Students will have a blast as they use descriptive language to write about an "explosive" and dramatic moment in their lives.