In this alternative book report, students identify the elements of fiction in books they have read by creating glogs, interactive multimedia posters, and then share their glogs.
Book Report Alternative: Glog That Book!
Not Your Usual History Lesson: Writing Historical Markers
Students will develop their summarizing skills while learning about local history. They will learn to consider audience while selecting topics, conducting research and interviews, and writing historical markers for their town.
Responding to Tragedy: Then and Now
After reading several poets' personal responses to the September 11th terrorist attacks, students write a "then and now" poem that puts their early memories of the event in conversation with their current understanding of and response to the tragedy.
Storyboarding the Transformation from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde
Students imagine and storyboard their own vision of the transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde and then evaluate movie portrayals.
Designing Elements of Story in Little Blue and Little Yellow
In this series of four lessons, students will explore key elements of design in Little Blue and
Little Yellow to learn about setting, character relationships, and plot.
Audience & Purpose: Evaluating Disney's Changes to the Hercules Myth
What drives changes to classic myths and fables? In this lesson students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules" in order to achieve their audience and purpose.
Boars and Baseball: Making Connections
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.
Analyzing the Rhetoric of Corporate Logos across Time
Students think critically about how design elements in logos work together to tell a changing story about a company or product in this visual rhetoric lesson.
Comparing William Carlos Williams's Poetry with Cubist Paintings
Through discussion, drawing, and writing, students compare how William Carlos Williams's poetry and Cubist and Precisionist painting employ similar artistic strategies, enhancing their understanding of both kinds of text.
Developing Citizenship Through Rhetorical Analysis
Students analyze rhetorical strategies in online editorials, building knowledge of strategies and awareness of local and national issues. This lesson teaches students connections between subject, writer, and audience and how rhetorical strategies are used in everyday writing.
Writing Acrostic Poems with Thematically Related Texts in the Content Areas
Students read thematically related texts, scaffolded from simple to complex, to help them gather necessary concept vocabulary and background knowledge in a content area. They then write acrostic poems to organize and present their learning in a creative way.
Captioning the Civil Rights Movement: Reading the Images, Writing the Words
Teachers guide students to carefully view images from the Civil Rights Movement and write captions that accurately describe the images and/or their probable purposes.
Examining History with Maya Angelou's Poetry
To understand the historical background that influenced Maya Angelou's poems, students research events to produce trading cards using the ReadWriteThink Trading Card Student Interactive. Through the sharing of these trading cards, students understand the historical background as they analyze Angelou's poetry.
Huge Mistakes that Led to Catastrophe: Learning about Human-made Disasters throughout History
After researching various human-made disasters such as the BP oil spill, the sinking of the Titanic, and the Great Chicago Fire, students share their research in oral presentations. Then students pair up to compare and contrast their disasters using the Venn Diagram Student Interactive or the Venn diagram Mobile App.
Proverbs: At Home and around the World
In this lesson, students work with proverbs from home and from around the world, exploring how these maxims are tied to a culture's values and everyday experience.
Myth and Truth: Independence Day
By exploring myths and truths surrounding Independence Day, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding the beginning of the Revolutionary War and the Independence Day holiday.
A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words: From Image to Detailed Narrative
The old cliche, "A picture is worth a thousand words" is put to the test when students write their own narrative interpretations of events shown in an image.
How Big Are Martin's Big Words? Thinking Big about the Future
Inspired by the book Martin's Big Words, students explore information on Dr. King to think about his "big" words, then they write about their own "big" words and dreams.
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues
Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.
Native Americans Today
This lesson challenges students' views of Native Americans as a vanished people by asking them to compare their prior knowledge with information they gather while reading about contemporary Native Americans.