Students revive elements of the oral tradition by writing about something funny that happened to them recently, sharing with classmates, and discussing the changes that occur during the retelling of the stories.
Today is Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko's birthday.
Author Gabriel García Márquez was born on this day.
Students take place in a collaborative creative writing activity to begin to understand the hallmarks of the literary style known as magical realism.
Beware the Ides of March!
Students discuss and categorize superstitions, define a superstition, and compare the similarities and difference between proverbs and superstitions.
On this date in 1901, Andrew Carnegie gave $5.2 million to New York City libraries.
Students write expository and persuasive pieces with the help of the Persuasion Map and Essay Map interactives, and compare the essential features of the two modes of writing.
The Barbie doll was unveiled in 1959.
Students explore body image and advertising through an activity where they bring in pictures from magazines that they read and discuss gender representations in the media.
March is National Women's History Month.
A scrapbook highlighting the accomplishments of famous American women is created as a class using the Alphabet Organizer and Bio-Cube.
Today is St. Patrick's Day.
St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by reading Irish folk tales and using the Story Cube tool to create a graphic organizer and see what characteristics are unique to Irish tales.
Today is Leap Day!
Our solar year is 365.24219 days. Since our calendar does not deal in partial days, every four years, we add an additional day to February.
Actor Sidney Poitier was born in 1924.
Students do a journal entry about barriers that have been broken,such as age, race, and gender, that might impede them in the future, and how they can break through those barriers.
In 1902, John Steinbeck was born.
Students brainstorm a list of the ills of society, research a topic of their choosing, and then prepare an annotated bibliography of texts that address the topic.
Humorist Erma Bombeck was born in 1927.
Using lines from Bombeck's newspaper column, students identify allusive or satirical humor. Older students can rewrite the passages for a different audience.
On this day in 1907, Rachel Carson was born.
Students learn about Rachel Carson, explore different environmental websites, and write a Diamante Poem about a particular habitat.
In 1564, William Shakespeare was born on this day.
Based on grade level, students learn about rhyming structure, experiment with the Shakespearean Insult Kit, or study scenes from Othello and watch an adaptation of that scene from the movie O.
Ezra Jack Keats was born on this day in 1916.
In celebration of Keats' birthday, students write stories that include some characters from Keats' books and practice using collage techniques with the Collage Machine.
Diarist Samuel Pepys was born.
Students write diary entries and revisit the entries as if it were a hundred years from now. Students then brainstorm and write paragraphs about life in the 21st century.
Valentine's Day is today!
Students find examples of figurative language and write an original example of each device, illustrate, and share them with the class.
Poet Robert Burns was born in 1759.
Students read examples of traditional Scottish ballads and use this information to write and perform their own ballads.
The Lunar New Year starts today.
Today is the first day of the New Year on the Chinese lunar calendar.
Jacob Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm, was born today.
Students compare different versions of the fairy tale Cinderella and then rewrite a lesser-known Grimm story and explain the changes they made.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on this day.
Students compare the film versions of The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's novels. Students then imagine how a scene in a current novel that they are reading would be filmed.