Students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using lists of accurate, powerful adjectives.

Students analyze Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne to determine how an author keeps an audience interested by creating voice and to applying that knowledge to their own writing.

Students respond to a book they have read by thinking symbolically to create a business card for one of the characters.

Students identify the elements of fiction in a book they have read and share summaries of them by writing and illustrating their own mini-book.

Students work in groups to create annotated book reviews with links to topics of interest related to their book.

Students make bookmarks on computers and share their ideas with other readers at their school, while practicing summarizing, recognizing symbols, and writing reviews—all for an authentic audience.

Students analyze "choose your own adventure" stories and brainstorm to develop setting, characters, and plots for their own adventures stories and related Websites.

Students explore character development through experiences with picture books. They learn about the connections between reading and writing and apply the information they learn to revisions of their own writing.

After listening to the beginning of a story, students use details in the text, personal experience, and prior knowledge to predict the way the story will end.

Students discuss and chart letter elements and write their own letters to adults at school, reinforcing letter-writing skills beyond the classroom lesson.

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 organized—and that they control.

Book Boosts—one-minute raves at the end of independent reading time—are 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.

Students analyze personal homepages, as well as a character in a book they have read, and then create a homepage for the character.

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.

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.

Picture books provide the basis for an analysis of fairy tale elements before students write their own original tales.

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.

Students examine leads in existing texts and create alternative leads for them before revising leads in their own writing.

Students examine great leads in children's literature before writing or revising a lead in their own writing.