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.

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.

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.

Students explore the different facets of complexity in the compelling first-person narrator in Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind.

Students engage in a close reading of a passage from Matt de la Pena's novel Ball Don't Lie before researching important background information to assess the accuracy of the claims made by a character.

This lesson enables students to define the three types of irony, identify and differentiate among examples of the types of irony, and demonstrate their understanding of each type.

This multi-lesson learning project encourages students to read engaging texts at their grade level and also works to promote habitual, independent reading in all students.

Students find examples of adjectives in a shared reading. Then students "become" major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using powerful adjectives.

Students must "become" a character in a novel in order to describe themselves and other characters using powerful adjectives.

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 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 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.

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

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.

After examining two sets of stories that author Raymond Carver renamed in revision, students write a reflective essay in which they defend their choice of a title for one them.