Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues
Writing Reports in Kindergarten? Yes!
This lesson encourages young students to see themselves as writers with a message to convey. Three types of reports are provided to show what kindergartners and emergent writers can do.
Book Clubs: Reading for Fun
This lesson describes how small groups of students can plan meetings to discuss what they've read in a "just for fun" book club they've organizedand that they control.
Daily Book Boosts
Book Boostsone-minute raves at the end of independent reading timeare easy ways to suggest new titles to students, and they act as a way for students to have something to think about as they read.
Native Americans Today
This lesson challenges students' views of Native Americans as a vanished people by asking them to compare their prior knowledge with information they gather while reading about contemporary Native Americans.
Story Character Homepage
Students analyze personal homepages, as well as a character in a book they have read, and then create a homepage for the character.
Get the Reel Scoop: Comparing Books to Movies
Students compare a book to its film adaptation, and then perform readers theater of a scene from the book that they feel was not well represented in the movie version.
Literature Circles with Primary Students Using Self-Selected Reading
Students respond to self-selected books in journals, and talk about their books daily in small groups. The teacher guides students by offering suggestions and writing with them in dialogue journals.
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.
Playing with Prepositions through Poetry
Students play with and explore prepositions during a whole group reading of Ruth Heller's Behind the Mask, and then by composing and publishing prepositional poems based on the book's style.
Biographies: Creating Timelines of a Life
In this lesson students explore a number of sources to create a biographical timeline about a selected person. Students collaboratively research and resolve conflicting information they find during their investigation.
Literature Circles: Getting Started
Students practice different ways of collaborating to read a work of literature. They work in different roles as they compose and answer questions, discover new vocabulary, and examine literary elements.
Introducing Each Other: Interviews, Memoirs, Photos, and Internet Research
Students use their communication and writing skills as they interview a partner, write an article about them, and create a multimodal presentation to introduce their partner to the class.
Leading to Great Places in the Middle School Classroom
Students examine leads in existing texts and create alternative leads for them before revising leads in their own writing.
Listen, Look, and Learn: An Information-Gathering Process
After listening to and discussing the story Score One for the Sloths, primary students research the sloth. Students use a variety of resources, including an information wheel graphic organizer.
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.
Memories Matter: The Giver and Descriptive Writing Memoirs
Using The Giver, students discuss the importance recorded history. This provides context for descriptive writing of students' own history in a lesson that integrates personal writing, research, and literary response.
Leading to Great Places in the Elementary Classroom
Students examine great leads in children's literature before writing or revising a lead in their own writing.
Engaging Students with Library of Congress Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom Quick-Reference Guide (QRG)
Quick-Reference Guide (QRG) focused on "Engaging Students with Library of Congress Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom."