Students read and discuss literature about intolerance and diversity. They work with a partner to write two-voice poems that illustrate situations of intolerance at their school and suggest a step toward acceptance.
Moving Toward Acceptance Through Picture Books and Two-Voice Texts
Brochures: Writing for Audience and Purpose
Students create brochures on the same topic as another piece of writing they have done, highlighting how shifting purposes and audiences creates changes in their strategies as writers.
Family Memoir: Getting Acquainted With Generations Before Us
Creating a memoir of an older family member allows students both to learn more about their own backgrounds and to learn the power of storytellers.
Designing Museum Exhibits for The Grapes of Wrath: A Multigenre Project
Using The Grapes of Wrath as a backdrop, students conduct research on issues that the novel addresses, publishing their findings in a multigenre museum exhibit.
Question and Answer Books--From Genre Study to Report Writing
After exploring several question and answer books on a variety of topics, students research a topic and create their own class question and answer book.
Connotation, Character, and Color Imagery in The Great Gatsby
Students explore the connotations of the colors associated with the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Literary Characters on Trial: Combining Persuasion and Literary Analysis
Students stage a mock trial for a literary character, with groups of students acting as the prosecution, defense, and jury.
Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry Project
Students explore a variety of resources as they learn about the Holocaust. Working collaboratively, they investigate the materials, prepare oral responses, and produce a topic-based newspaper to complete their research.
Weaving the Multigenre Web
Students analyze the elements of a novel in many different genres and then hyperlink these pieces together on student-constructed Websites.
Experiencing Haiku Through Mindfulness, Movement & Music
By being present and mindful on nature walks, students write haiku using vivid sensory language; and explore body movement, music and art as visual and kinesthetic representations of their poetry.
Choose Your Own Adventure: A Hypertext Writing Experience
Students analyze "choose your own adventure" stories and brainstorm to develop setting, characters, and plots for their own adventures stories and related Websites.
Fairy Tales from Life
Picture books provide the basis for an analysis of fairy tale elements before students write their own original tales.
Expository Escapade—Detective's Handbook
Students create a Detective's Handbook based on a detective mystery they have read. The handbooks include expository and descriptive writing, as well as a letter.
Writing and Assessing an Autobiographical Incident
Students build upon their knowledge of biographies to write their own autobiographical incident. After going through a process of revision, they use a rubric to assess their work.
The Ten-Minute Play: Encouraging Original Response to Challenging Texts
Students use both analytical and creative skills to adapt passages from a novel with significant internal dialogue and conflict, such as Toni Morrison's Beloved, into a ten-minute play.
Having My Say: A Multigenre Autobiography Project
Students compose a multigenre paper, modeled after the Delany sister's autobiography, Having Our Say, that includes the autobiographical narrative essay as well as an informational nonfiction piece.
Ekphrasis: Using Art to Inspire Poetry
In this lesson, students explore ekphrasis—writing inspired by art. Students find pieces of art that inspire them and compose a booklet of poems about the pieces they have chosen.
Designing Effective Poster Presentations
Students explore the genre of posters, review informational writing and visual design, and then design poster presentations to share in class or at a school-wide fair.
It's My Life: Multimodal Autobiography Project
Students express themselves verbally, visually, and musically by creating multimodal autobiographies, exchanging ideas with other students and sharing important events in their lives through PowerPoint presentations.
The Children's Picture Book Project
In this lesson students evaluate published children's picture storybooks. Students then plan, write, illustrate, and publish their own children's picture books.