Students rework their forgotten/abandoned drafts by cutting and covering up selected words. By creatively manipulating text, they explore portal writing, a strategy for envisioning a new story or story direction.
Cut up, Cover up, and Come Away with Ideas for Writing!
Speaking Poetry: Exploring Sonic Patterns Through Performance
Using their voices as interpretive instruments, students gain a deeper appreciation of the art of poetry as they prepare a recitation of the frequently anthologized poem "Those Winter Sundays."
An Exploration of Romanticism Through Art and Poetry
Students use art and poetry to explore and understand major characteristics of the Romantic period.
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.
Plot Structure: A Literary Elements Mini-Lesson
Students learn that the plot structure described by Freytag's Pyramid is actually quite familiar as they diagram the plots of a familiar story, a television show, and a narrative poem.
You're the Top! Pop Culture Then and Now
Students analyze the lyrics to Cole Porter's "You're the Top!" and then update them to include current "tops" in pop culture.
Creating Family Timelines: Graphing Family Memories and Significant Events
Students interview family members, and then create graphic family timelines based on important and memorable family events.
Locating Purpose in Allusion through Art and Poetry
Through this lesson, students will learn how to use the literary term "allusion" in discussing how and why authors and artists draw on and transform subject material.
Talking Poetry with Blabberize
Students will be motivated to share their poetry through an online tool the features recording and animation.
Animate that Haiku!
Following the traditional form of the haiku, students publish their own haikus using Animoto, an online web tool to produce slideshows that blend text and music.
Exploring the Power of Language with Six-Word Memoirs
What do the words we write really have to say about us? In this lesson, students examine the power of word choice as they write six-word memoirs of their lives.
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.
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.
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!
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.
360 Degrees of Text: Using Poetry to Teach Close Reading and Powerful Writing
Through Eileen Murphy Buckley's 360-degree approach to teaching critical literacy, students investigate texts through a full spectrum of learning modalities, harnessing the excitement of performance, imitation, creative writing, and argument/debate activities to become more powerful thinkers, readers, and writers.
#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.
Reading on the Go
In this Strategy Guide, learn how to prepare yourself and your students for reading and note-taking in mobile environments.