Paper and pixels get compared in this lesson in which students compare both printed and online versions of a magazine.
Children write and receive postcards from friends and family, and then chart where all those postcards come from on a classroom map.
Students will have a blast as they use descriptive language to write about an explosive and dramatic moment in their lives.
Following the model of N. Scott Momaday's The Way To Rainy Mountain, students write three-voice narratives based on Kiowa folktales, an interview with an Elder, and personal connections to theme.
Students reflect on their school year, creating a digital scrapbook consisting of images and text to present to their school community.
Students analyze the Gwendolyn Brooks poem "We Real Cool" and then write about how the character's pool hall days might influence who the character becomes fifty years in the future.
Students work on a guided characterization project, using a graphic map to illustrate the ways a character from a book series grows and evolves over the course of the story.
This lesson provides ideas for celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by encouraging students to explore the connections between Dr. King and themselves through journaling and inquiry-based research.
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.
In this unit students study the California migrant farm workers’ fight for justice. Lead by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, this time period is often referred to as the start of the Latino civil rights movement. Over the course of the unit students will explore what life was like for migrant farm workers in the 1960s and the barriers that prevented them from obtaining better wages and equitable working conditions. Students will then learn about how the farm workers were able to band together under the leadership of Larry Itliong, Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta to launch a multi-year movement focused on using nonviolent tactics as a way of making meaningful, long-lasting change. In particular, students will analyze how different types of nonviolent protests (boycotts, pickets, marches, strikes, and fasting) helped educate the public and influence change. Understanding the history of migrant farm workers and their struggle for justice is important for helping students understand the world around them. It is important to note that this unit is based in history. Many of the ideas and concepts in this unit are connected to current events; however, the focus of the unit is on this period in history.
In reading, this unit helps students continue to build their informational reading skills. Over the course of the unit students will be pushed to think about the connection between two or more historical events and people. Unlike previous units, this unit contains a variety of primary sources and videos that require students to use different reading and speaking and listening strategies in order to synthesize and summarize key ideas.
Students prepare an already published scholarly article for presentation, with an emphasis on identification of the author's thesis and argument structure.
This lesson teaches students how to use old verbs in a new way, thus creating new and fresh descriptive phrases.
Students read and discuss literature about intolerance and diversity. They work with a partner to write two-voice poems that illustrate situations of intolerance at their school and suggest a step toward acceptance.
Students use critical literacy skills to understand the concept of perspective and to then create a diary for an animal they research with a partner.
Students won't miss a beat in this musical lesson that combines listening with personal response on a postcard.
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.
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.
The Mystery Cube helps students identify and summarize story elements in this popular genre. It can be used as a postreading or prewriting activity.
By exploring myths and truths surrounding Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding this famous speech from the Civil War era.
In this lesson, students practice a way to communicate without words by using a glyph. They create a name card using information about themselves. Students also interpret glyphs made by others.