Students learn about sentences by listing verbs, nouns, and adjectives. They use word cards to create descriptive sentences and work in groups to create the longest sentences they can.

Students demonstrate their letter/sound knowledge by working with name cards and sharing observations about their classmates' names, giving teachers an opportunity to assess knowledge in a meaningful context.

Introduce students to the idea that movies and TV have their own language and grammar, which gives them special ways of telling their stories.

Students watch a sample of artistic video clips online and respond through creative writing while using the vocabulary words they are currently studying.

Students compile a playlist of 10 songs representing a literary character and explain their choices based on the book's dialogue, plot, conflict, and resolution.

Students hone their critical thinking skills by learning how to make inferences from textual clues.

Bring the vocabulary of film to life through the processes of filmmaking. Students learn terminology and techniques simultaneously as they plan, film, and edit a short video.

Students demonstrate their knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships by creating original comic strips and sharing their completed work in an oral presentation format.

During writing workshop, students research, write, revise, and share their own comprehensive biographies of African American jazz musicians.

Students produce a Readers Theatre performance to compete to be named the Reading Idol. Students vote on the final performances and record them as podcasts.

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.

This lesson is sure to sizzle, not fizzle, as students use comic strips to find onomatopoetic words, develop a vocabulary list from the words, and discuss why writers use onomatopoeia.

Movie music and magic set the scene for this lesson in which students analyze a scene from Good Morning, Vietnam and then create a scene of their own.

Students will find their inner poet laureate in this lesson that involves writing a poem in the style of Robert Frost.

Students' groans about studying poetry may disappear with this lesson in which students read poetry from various writers and use these poems to examine the sounds and sense of language.

Students won't miss a beat in this reading fluency lesson that combines music and poetry.

Visual clues in winter-themed books used in this lesson encourage students to make real-world math connections.

Students become online authors in this lesson in which they write and post a short story using wiki technology.

Students learn that what you read in books can really add up when they analyze literary texts for economic concepts.