Students explore the ways that powerful and passionate words communicate the concepts of freedom, justice, discrimination, and the American Dream in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Exploring the Power of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Words through Diamante Poetry
Is a Sentence a Poem?
Students use their own poetry to analyze syntax, imagery, and meaning in a one-sentence poem by a canonical author to decide what makes it a poem.
Varying Views of America
Students work together to analyze three poems about America with varying points of view.
Responding to Tragedy: Then and Now
After reading several poets' personal responses to the September 11th terrorist attacks, students write a "then and now" poem that puts their early memories of the event in conversation with their current understanding of and response to the tragedy.
Active Reading through Self-Assessment: The Student-Made Quiz
This recurring lesson encourages students to comprehend their reading through inquiry and collaboration. They choose important quotations from the text and work in groups to formulate "quiz" questions that their peers will answer.
Comparing William Carlos Williams's Poetry with Cubist Paintings
Through discussion, drawing, and writing, students compare how William Carlos Williams's poetry and Cubist and Precisionist painting employ similar artistic strategies, enhancing their understanding of both kinds of text.
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.
Examining History with Maya Angelou's Poetry
To understand the historical background that influenced Maya Angelou's poems, students research events to produce trading cards using the ReadWriteThink Trading Card Student Interactive. Through the sharing of these trading cards, students understand the historical background as they analyze Angelou's poetry.
Developing Aesthetic Criteria: Using Music to Move Beyond Like/Dislike with Poetry
In this lesson, students develop the cognitive tool of criteria development for discussing the aesthetics of poetry and music.
Letter Poems Deliver: Experimenting with Line Breaks in Poetry Writing
Students explore letter poems and experiment with writing letters as poems, using the placement of line breaks to enhance rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance.
What Makes Poetry? Exploring Line Breaks
Students read various poems and explore why lines are broken where they are and how they affect rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance in poetry.
Stapleless Book
The Stapleless Book can be used for taking notes while reading, making picture books, collecting facts, or creating vocabulary booklets . . . the possibilities are endless!
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.
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.
Socratic Seminars
This strategy guide explains Socratic seminars and offers practical methods for applying the approach in your classroom to help students investigate multiple perspectives in a text.
Sherman Alexie in the Classroom: "This is not a silent movie. Our voices will save our lives."
Provides high school teachers with teaching strategies, classroom activities, and student samples for teaching the works of Sherman Alexie.
Sandra Cisneros in the Classroom: "Do not forget to reach"
The third volume in the NCTE High School Literature Series explores the joys of reading and teaching the stories and poems of noted Mexican American author Sandra Cisneros.
Langston Hughes in the Classroom: "Do Nothin' till You Hear from Me"
Carmaletta M. Williams provides high school teachers with background on Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance as well as help in teaching Hughes's poetry, short stories, novels, and autobiography.
Depend on the Text! How to Create Text-Dependent Questions
Teachers need to create text-dependent questions to elicit close reading. When answering these questions, students learn to reread and think deeply about the text.
Promote Deep Thinking! How to Choose a Complex Text
Complex texts promote deep thinking and critical analysis by students. Through close reading of a complex text, students' independent reading abilities also increase.