Students compare and analyze novels and the movies adapted from them. They design new DVD covers and a related insert for the movies, reflecting their response to the movie version.
Cover to Cover: Comparing Books to Movies
The Children's Picture Book Project
In this lesson students evaluate published children's picture storybooks. Students then plan, write, illustrate, and publish their own children's picture books.
I've Got the Literacy Blues
Students will be singing the blues in this lesson in which they identify themes from "The Gift of the Magi" and write and present blues poetry based on those themes.
Behind the Scenes With Cinderella
Cinderella without castles, coaches, or ball gowns? Students use versions of Cinderella to explore how the setting of a storytime, place, and cultureaffects the characters and plot.
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.
Everyone Loves a Mystery: A Genre Study
Students track the elements of mystery stories through Directed Learning-Thinking Activities, story maps, and puzzles. Then they offer clues for other readers as they plan and write original mystery stories.
Diagram It! Identifying, Comparing, and Writing About Nonfiction Texts
Students compare the traits fact and fiction by using a Venn diagram to compare fiction and nonfiction books about Native Americans.
Thrills! Chills! Using Scary Stories to Motivate Students to Read
Students examine story elements through teacher read-alouds and independent reading and then use reader-response journals and graphic organizers to prepare for the creation of their own scary stories.
Junie B. Jones Introduces Literacy Mystery Boxes
Like Junie B. Jones, students will be saying "Wait till you hear this" after listening to a Junie B. story and creating mystery boxes to help retell the story.
A High-Interest Novel Helps Struggling Readers Confront Bullying in Schools
Students read a work of realistic fiction about bullying and gain understanding through writing, Readers Theatre, and discussion.
Picture Understanding! Building Comprehension in the Primary Grades With Picture Books
Students move from modeled to independent comprehension of fiction stories by using texts by Jan Brett and interactive tools that demonstrate their comprehension.
When I Was Young In...A Literature to Language Experience
Past meets present in this lesson in which students practice verb tense when they write personal short stories that they then publish in a flip book.
Developing Story Structure With Paper-Bag Skits
Lights, camera, action, and a bit of mystery! In this lesson, students use mystery props in a skit bag to create and perform in short, impromptu skits.
Zines for Kids: Multigenre Texts About Media Icons
Special edition! Students use ReadWriteThink tools to create magazines about prominent figures using a variety of writing genres and styles.
Lights, Camera, Action: Interviewing a Book Character
Students get the inside scoop on a story when they create interview questions and answers for characters in the books they read.
From Fact to Fiction: Drawing and Writing Stories
Students gather factual information about frogs and toads to create nonfiction and fiction stories. Drawing is used for prewriting.
The Big, Bad Wolf...Is This a Fact?
Reading is revamped in this lesson in which students use a multimedia approach to study the books by Seymour Simon.
In the Poet's Shoes: Performing Poetry and Building Meaning
Students take poetic license when they interpret William Carlos William's poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" to help create a poem of their own.
Pairing Fiction With Poetry and Performance
Make connections across genres and across cultures to engage students in the study of literary voice and themes. Comprehension skills and vocabulary also come into play, especially for English language learners, as students read a novel and related poems, then write and perform original poems related to the novel.
Exploring Author's Voice Using Jane Addams Award-Winning Books
History has many faces in this lesson in which students read Jane Addams Award-winning books to learn about peace, social justice, world community, and equality.