This lesson invites students to create a "Driver's License" for characters that have made a contribution to western expansion in the United States.
"Licensed" to Drive: Old West Figures
A Tale of a Few Text Messages: A Character Study of A Tale of Two Cities
Students use A Tale of Two Cities to explore relationships, plot points, character traits, and background by writing text messages between characters within the novel.
Book Report Alternative: Glog That Book!
In this alternative book report, students identify the elements of fiction in books they have read by creating glogs, interactive multimedia posters, and then share their glogs.
Digitally Telling the Story of Greek Figures
In this lesson students research Greek gods, heroes, and creatures and then share their findings through digital storytelling.
Demonstrating Understanding of Richard Wright's Rite of Passage
Students use the elements of persuasion for a specific audience to demonstrate their understanding of Richard Wright's accessible and engaging coming-of-age novel, Rite of Passage.
Professional Writing in Action! Publishing Student Reviews Online
Writing professional reviews teaches students to understand audience, content, and publication guidelines. In this lesson, students put these into practice as professional writers critiquing, designing, and publishing reviews on Amazon.com.
Authoring an Epilogue That Helps Our Characters Live On
This lesson uses One Green Apple by Eve Bunting to teach how characters change across a text. It will also guide students through writing an epilogue to accompany their independent book.
Storyboarding the Transformation from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde
Students imagine and storyboard their own vision of the transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde and then evaluate movie portrayals.
Developing Persuasive Arguments through Ethical Inquiry: Two Prewriting Strategies
In this lesson, students use focused prewriting strategies to explore content and ethical issues related to a persuasive assignment.
Designing Elements of Story in Little Blue and Little Yellow
In this series of four lessons, students will explore key elements of design in Little Blue and
Little Yellow to learn about setting, character relationships, and plot.
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.
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.
A Recipe for Writing: Fairy Tale Feasts
After examining recipes written based on students' favorite fairy tales, students research a recipe related to their favorite story, book, or fairy tale and include it in a classroom recipe book.
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.
Analyzing the Rhetoric of Corporate Logos across Time
Students think critically about how design elements in logos work together to tell a changing story about a company or product in this visual rhetoric lesson.
Using Collaborative Reasoning to Support Critical Thinking
Students will participate in Collaborative Reasoning in small groups to discuss and think critically about issues of social justice and diversity by reading current events informational articles.
"Roused by the Change of Scene": Analyzing a Film Adaptation of Jane Eyre
As part of their study of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, students read selected sections of the novel closely and compare their representation in the text to representations in the 2007 Masterpiece adaptation of Jane Eyre. They use the concepts of time/pacing, character, and theme to focus their analysis and to plan an adaptation of a scene of their choice.
And in Conclusion: Inquiring into Strategies for Writing Effective Conclusions
While drafting a literary analysis essay (or another type of argument) of their own, students work in pairs to investigate advice for writing conclusions and to analyze conclusions of sample essays. They then draft two conclusions for their essay, select one, and reflect on what they have learned through the process.
Book Report Alternative: Creating Postcards for Fictional Settings
In this alternative to the traditional book report, students report on their novel choices that feature journeys by creating postcards one of the settings featured in their books.
Analyzing First-Person Narration in Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind
Students explore the different facets of complexity in the compelling first-person narrator in Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind.