Performing poetry incorporates oral reading, literature, and the performing arts. This strategy can benefit content area readers, English language learners, or learners with special needs.
Performing Poetry
Great Films and How to Teach Them
Costanzo offers high school and college teachers an updated, expanded edition that contains 80% new material on teaching film, including study guides of 14 new film with relevant ways to engage their students through a medium that students know and love.
Reading in the Reel World: Teaching Documentaries and Other Nonfiction Texts
John Golden offers middle and high school teachers a practical guide for using documentary film in the classroom to improve students' reading, writing, and thinking skills.
Reading in the Dark: Using Film as a Tool in the English Classroom
In this practical guide, John Golden makes direct links between film and literary study by addressing reading strategies (e.g., predicting, responding, questioning) and key aspects of textual analysis.
Constructing New Understanding Through Choral Readings of Shakespeare
After reading The Tempest or any other play by William Shakespeare, students work in small groups to plan, compose, and perform a choral reading based on a character or theme.
All's Well that Sells Well: A Creative Introduction to Shakespeare
Students compare attending a performance at The Globe Theater with attending a modern theater production or movie. They then create a commercial for an Elizabethan audience promoting a modern product.
The Ten-Minute Play: Encouraging Original Response to Challenging Texts
Students use both analytical and creative skills to adapt passages from a novel with significant internal dialogue and conflict, such as Toni Morrison's Beloved, into a ten-minute play.
Having My Say: A Multigenre Autobiography Project
Students compose a multigenre paper, modeled after the Delany sister's autobiography, Having Our Say, that includes the autobiographical narrative essay as well as an informational nonfiction piece.
Writing Technical Instructions
Students walk through the process of creating technical instructions by analyzing existing instructions, choosing an audience, writing their own instructions, receiving user feedback, and then revising and publishing their instructions.
Cover to Cover: Comparing Books to Movies
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.
Beyond "What I Did on Vacation": Exploring the Genre of Travel Writing
After reading and analyzing short examples of travel writing and discussing conventions of the genre, students write their own travel articles.
Gaining Background for the Graphic Novel Persepolis: A WebQuest on Iran
To prepare students for reading the graphic novel Persepolis, this lesson uses a WebQuest to focus students' research on finding reliable information about Iran before and during the Islamic Revolution.
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.
Scaffolding Methods for Research Paper Writing
In this lesson, students use a scaffold to help them compile information to write a solid research paper.
I Remember That Book: Rereading as a Critical Investigation
Curl up with a good book againor not. In this lesson, students brainstorm why they reread some books, while passing up others, and write their reflections in an essay.
Plotting a Plan to Improve Writing: Using Plot Scaffolds
Students really get into character in this lesson as they act out the parts of a script and analyze character motivations and dialogue.
A Musical Prompt: Postcards From the Concert
Students won't miss a beat in this musical lesson that combines listening with personal response on a postcard.
To, Too, or Two: Developing an Understanding of Homophones
The classroom becomes a stage in this interactive lesson in which students sing, act, and design comic strips to learn the meanings and spellings of common homophones.