Students create poetry collections with the theme of "getting to know each other." They study and then write a variety of forms of poetry to include in their collections.
Creating Classroom Community by Crafting Themed Poetry Collections
From Stop Signs to the Golden Arches: Environmental Print
Students bring the print-rich environment of the community into the classroom through the use of environmental print, enabling emergent readers to delight in the realization that they are indeed readers.
Introducing Each Other: Interviews, Memoirs, Photos, and Internet Research
Students use their communication and writing skills as they interview a partner, write an article about them, and create a multimodal presentation to introduce their partner to the class.
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.
Tell and Show: Writing With Words and Video
Writers and film buffs alike will sharpen their skills in this multimedia unit as they work together to author and design a digital video.
Giving Voice to Students Through "This I Believe" Podcasts
Students write and record their own essays for a class blog by first completing a series of activities designed to get them thinking and writing about their experiences.
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.
Finding Solutions to Food Waste: Persuasion in a Digital World
Using various reading strategies and resources, students explore the issue of food waste. They also create persuasive arguments and blog posts examining this topic.
A Portrait of Our World: Making Connections and Developing Comprehension
Students engage in carousel walks, character analyses, global explorations, and genre studies while using valuable language arts strategies to build higher-level comprehension skills.
All About Our Town: Using Brochures to Teach Informational Writing
Students explore their towns' landmarks, symbols, and people; look at brochures and other informational tools; practice writing for a specific audience and revising; and work collaboratively to create a brochure.
Exploring and Sharing Family Stories
Writing gets personal when students interview family members in order to write a personal narrative about that person.
MyTube: Changing the World With Video Public Service Announcements
This assignment will go viral with students as they think about the meanings of words and images in public service announcements from YouTube before creating a PSA of their own.
Crit Lit for Kids: From Critical Consciousness to Service Learning
Students take their ideas from the classroom page to the community pavement when they participate in a service-learning project based on their multimedia presentations.
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.
My Family Traditions: A Class Book and a Potluck Lunch
After analyzing Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, students create a class book with artwork and information about their ancestry, traditions, and recipes, followed by a potluck lunch.