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.
Developing Citizenship Through Rhetorical Analysis
Reading Shakespeare's The Tempest through a Postcolonial Lens
Students take a postcolonial perspective on the portrayal of Caliban from Shakespeare's The Tempest by comparing it to a modern adaptation of the play.
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.
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.
Get the Reel Scoop: Comparing Books to Movies
Students compare a book to its film adaptation, and then perform readers theater of a scene from the book that they feel was not well represented in the movie version.
Biographies: Creating Timelines of a Life
In this lesson students explore a number of sources to create a biographical timeline about a selected person. Students collaboratively research and resolve conflicting information they find during their investigation.
Writing and Assessing an Autobiographical Incident
Students build upon their knowledge of biographies to write their own autobiographical incident. After going through a process of revision, they use a rubric to assess their work.
Memories Matter: The Giver and Descriptive Writing Memoirs
Using The Giver, students discuss the importance recorded history. This provides context for descriptive writing of students' own history in a lesson that integrates personal writing, research, and literary response.
Engaging Students with Library of Congress Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom Quick-Reference Guide (QRG)
Quick-Reference Guide (QRG) focused on "Engaging Students with Library of Congress Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom."
Rosa Parks was born on this day in 1913.
Rosa Parks was committed to the struggle for social justice and human rights until her death, inspiring millions of people around the world. Today, we celebrate her!
Trading Card Creator
This tool provides a fun and useful way to explore a variety of topics such as a character in a book, a person or place from history, or even a physical object. An excellent tool to for summarizing or as a prewriting exercise for original stories.
Power of Picture Books, The: Using Content Area Literature in Middle School
Featuring descriptions and activities for fifty exceptional titles, Mary Jo Fresch and Peggy Harkins offer a wealth of ideas for harnessing the power of picture books to improve reading and writing in the content areas.
Reading Shakespeare with Young Adults
Dakin explores different methods for getting students engaged--and excited--about Shakespeare's plays as they learn to construct meaning from the texts' sixteenth-century language and connect it to their twenty-first-century lives.