Students debate about incorporating service-learning into their school's curriculum.
The Great Service-Learning Debate & Research Project
Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments
Students are often asked to perform speeches, but rarely do we require students to analyze speeches as carefully as we study works of literature. In this unit, students are required to identify the rhetorical strategies in a famous speech and the specific purpose for each chosen device. They will write an essay about its effectiveness and why it is still famous after all these years.
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.
Entering History: Nikki Giovanni and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nikki Giovanni's poem "The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr." is paired with Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, taking students on a quest through time to the Civil Rights movement.
Exploring Free Speech and Persuasion with Nothing But the Truth
Students read Avi's Nothing But the Truth and examine the First Amendment and student rights, and then decide whether the rights of the novel's protagonist, Philip, are violated.
Examining Transcendentalism through Popular Culture
Using excerpts from the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, comics, and songs from different musical genres, students examine the characteristics of transcendentalism.
Blending the Past with Today's Technology: Using Prezi to Prepare for Historical Fiction
To prepare for literature circles featuring historical novels, students research the decades of the 1930s to the 1990s and share their information using Prezi, a web application for creating multimedia presentations.
Vote for Me! Making Presidential Commercials Using Avatars
After researching political platforms of past presidents through primary sources and other resources, students create commercials for these presidents using Voki, an online web tool that produces speaking avatars.
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.
Boars and Baseball: Making Connections
In this lesson, students will make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections after reading In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. After sharing and discussing connections, students choose and plan a project that makes a personal connection to the text.
Analyzing the Rhetoric of Corporate Logos across Time
Students think critically about how design elements in logos work together to tell a changing story about a company or product in this visual rhetoric lesson.
Captioning the Civil Rights Movement: Reading the Images, Writing the Words
Teachers guide students to carefully view images from the Civil Rights Movement and write captions that accurately describe the images and/or their probable purposes.
"Three Stones Back": Using Informational Text to Enhance Understanding of Ball Don't Lie
Students engage in a close reading of a passage from Matt de la Pena's novel Ball Don't Lie before researching important background information to assess the accuracy of the claims made by a character.
Exploring Perspectives on Desegregation Using Brown Girl Dreaming
Students read and discuss a selection of poems from Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming to explore varying views on the process of desegregation in America.
Power of Picture Books, The: Using Content Area Literature in Middle School
Featuring descriptions and activities for fifty exceptional titles, Mary Jo Fresch and Peggy Harkins offer a wealth of ideas for harnessing the power of picture books to improve reading and writing in the content areas.
#weneeddiversebooks
Even if they are few in number, diverse books do exist. Tune in to hear about recently-published YA titles that celebrate diversity in a range of genres. There's something for every reader here: comic book superheroes, Civil Rights history, love stories, humorous essays, poetry, artwork, and stories of suspense.
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.
Persuasive Writing
This strategy guide focuses on persuasive writing and offers specific methods on how you can help your students use it to improve their critical writing and thinking skills.
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.