Students use text sets to research a topic inspired by a fiction book they have read. A text set is a collection of multiple text genres with a single focus.
Literature as a Jumping Off Point for Nonfiction Inquiry
Creating Classroom Community by Crafting Themed Poetry Collections
Students create poetry collections with the theme of "getting to know each other." They study and then write a variety of forms of poetry to include in their collections.
Investigating Animals: Using Nonfiction for Inquiry-based Research
Inspired by their curiosity about animals, students work together to research an animal of their choice and present the information they gather to an authentic audience.
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.
From Stop Signs to the Golden Arches: Environmental Print
Students bring the print-rich environment of the community into the classroom through the use of environmental print, enabling emergent readers to delight in the realization that they are indeed readers.
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.
Discovering Memory: Li-Young Lee's Poem "Mnemonic" and the Brain
Students learn about memory by doing a memory-writing exercise, studying the brain to understand how it affects memory, reading Li-Young Lee's poem "Mnemonic," and creating projects to demonstrate their understanding.
Connecting Past and Present: A Local Research Project
In this unit, students become active archivists, gathering photos, artifacts, and stories for a museum exhibit that highlights one decade in their school's history.
Tell and Show: Writing With Words and Video
Writers and film buffs alike will sharpen their skills in this multimedia unit as they work together to author and design a digital video.
Giving Voice to Students Through "This I Believe" Podcasts
Students write and record their own essays for a class blog by first completing a series of activities designed to get them thinking and writing about their experiences.
Teaching Audience Through Interactive Writing
Through interactive writing, students work together and then independently to create invitation letters for a group of their peers and their families.
Weather: A Journey in Nonfiction
Questions about weather clear up when students use what they learned from their books to create a presentation to share with the rest of the class.
Astronomy Poetry: Combining Poetry With the Content Areas
Students' responses to this lesson will be out of this world after they've researched astronomy to write poetry and compile a poetry book.
Predicting and Gathering Information With Nonfiction Texts
Students take a walk on the wild side when they develop an understanding of nonfiction texts with hands-on experiences and intense analysis.
Finding Solutions to Food Waste: Persuasion in a Digital World
Using various reading strategies and resources, students explore the issue of food waste. They also create persuasive arguments and blog posts examining this topic.
A Portrait of Our World: Making Connections and Developing Comprehension
Students engage in carousel walks, character analyses, global explorations, and genre studies while using valuable language arts strategies to build higher-level comprehension skills.
Rain, Ice, Steam: Using Reading to Support Inquiry About the Water Cycle
Water is always moving in a continuous cycle from liquid to solid to gas and back again. Students study this never-ending cycle through shared readings, center activities, and experiments.
Nature Reflections: Interactive Language Practice for English-Language Learners
Students whose first language is not English reflect on nature through readings, a visit to a green area, and bookmaking using the writing process and peer feedback.
I Wonder: Writing Scientific Explanations With Students
Students choose a question to explore, research it using a variety of resources, organize their information on a TCF chart, and then collaboratively write a class scientific explanation.