Working as career counselors for a literary character, students find a job for the character, prepare a resume, and design questions and answers to prepare them for a job interview.
Preparing a Character for a New Job: Character Analysis through Job Placement
Book Report Alternative: Creating Careers for Characters
Students select a job listing for a character in a book they have read, then create a resume and application letter for that character.
Book Report Alternative: Characters for Hire! Studying Character in Drama
In this alternative to the traditional book report, students respond to a play they have read by creating a resume for one of its characters.
Book Report Alternative: Getting Acquainted with Farcebook
In this alternative to the traditional book report, students report on their novel choices using Facebook-like pages.
Sí, Se Puede: Making a Difference, One Letter at a Time
After reading the book ¡Si, Se Puede!/Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A., students learn about labor unions, strikes, and organizing for change. Students interview staff members in their school to learn about their daily work life, and write persuasive advocacy letters.
Sharing Information about Careers with Infographics
Students research careers of their own choosing. Then using Piktochart, students create their own infographics to illustrate their research.
Trading Card Creator
This tool provides a fun and useful way to explore a variety of topics such as a character in a book, a person or place from history, or even a physical object. An excellent tool to for summarizing or as a prewriting exercise for original stories.
Connection Web
Students use this printout to expand on connections they have made to a text and use those details to write essays or create projects about the text.
Using the RAFT Writing Strategy
This strategy guide introduces the RAFT technique and offers practical ideas for using this technique to teach students to experiment with various perspectives in their writing.
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.
Bringing Lessons to Life with Animoto
Using Animoto, a free Web 2.0 tool, students can develop short digital videos that include music, photos, video clips, and text as well as share their creations electronically.
Speak to Me: Teaching with Voki
Through Voki, a Web 2.0 tool, students create customizable avatars for class presentations for various purposes, such as presenting biographical information, expressing an opinion, or reading a poem.
Bringing Economic Vocabulary to Life Through Video Posters
Imagine if vocabulary could come alive with the click of a button! Students create video posters to demonstrate knowledge of new economics vocabulary.
Using Word Storms to Explore Vocabulary and Encourage Critical Thinking
Students learn that dogs are more than just pets in this lesson, which teaches them to use research and vocabulary-acquisition strategies to learn and write about working dogs.
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.
The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986.
Students interview a parent or another adult about the Challenger and hypothesize about differences. Students can also write about the Columbia disaster in 2003.
Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in the US to earn a MD degree in 1849.
"Famous Firsts" are researched by students, followed by small group research and multimedia presentations to report research results.
Celebrate Children's Authors and Illustrators Week
Students "step into the shoes" of their favorite author by reading several of their books, conducting research, and preparing displays and presentations for the class.
Today is Leo Lionni's birthday.
As a child growing up in Holland, Leo Lionni taught himself how to draw and later became an author and illustrator of children's books. Leo Lionni is the winner of four Caldecott awards.
Amazing Biographies: Writing About People Who Change the World
After reading about historical figures and other important people that have changed the world, children choose someone that they consider to be "amazing"—either someone they've heard about or someone they know—and create a book page that highlights this person.