Students practice writing detailed, sensory-rich descriptions by framing a small piece of nature and freewriting about it. From this minilesson, students can develop a variety of types of writing.

This lesson uses the "1984" Macintosh Commercial to introduce students to dystopian characteristics. Students analyze techniques used in the commercial and identify the comments that it makes about contemporary society.

Students analyze the lyrics to Cole Porter's "You're the Top!" and then update them to include current "tops" in pop culture.

Students analyze stylistic choices and grammar use in authentic writing, focusing on the use of the semicolon in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

C is for Culture in this lesson in which students research a culture different from their own and compile an alphabet book that showcases cultural symbols for each letter of the alphabet.

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.

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

Imagine if vocabulary could come alive with the click of a button! Students create video posters to demonstrate knowledge of new economics vocabulary.

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.

Students learn about word families by reading Kevin Henkes's book Chrysanthemum, identifying words with certain vowel pair endings, and reading words with similar endings.

Gentle, gigantic, graceful—do these g words describe the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk? Students will explore the hard and soft g sounds by studying fairy tales and animals.