Students learn that you don't have to raise your voice to raise a point. Writing a persuasive letter to your principal is a great way to get your opinions heard.

The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.

This lesson engages children in using writing to their families as a persuasive tool to get what they want and need.

Students use picture books as framing texts for research, freeing them from the language of encyclopedia sources and allowing them to focus their attention on the content of their papers.

Let the students be the vocabulary experts! Prior to whole class instruction, students create online flashcards and teach the class the new vocabulary.

Students move from modeled to independent comprehension of fiction stories by using texts by Jan Brett and interactive tools that demonstrate their comprehension.

Students get the big picture of the Middle East when they read and analyze Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel "Persepolis".

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.

In this unit, students explore how plastic pollution is choking the world’s oceans. Students learn about the history of plastic, how plastic ends up in the ocean, how plastic in the ocean impacts the ecosystem, and why it’s so hard to remove plastic from the ocean once it’s there. In the second half of the unit, students explore a variety of solutions for reducing plastic waste and reducing the amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean. Students will learn about large policy-based changes that can be made and also explore smaller voluntary actions they can take that will make a difference. Finally, students end the unit doing a research project aimed at educating others about the dangers of plastic and its impact on the environment.

In reading, this unit serves as the foundational informational unit of the year. Students will be challenged to explain the relationship between two or more scientific ideas, determine the meaning of domain-specific words, and understand the reasons and evidence the author uses to support a particular point. Since this is the first informational unit, routines and procedures for active annotation, discussion, and writing about reading should be introduced so that students are able to show understanding of the text and standards in multiple modes.

Cooperation and critical thinking are the name of the game as students use baseball facts they find online to create trivia questions for a class Jeopardy game.

In this twist on traditional bingo, the game boards feature students' names, and students answer questions designed to help them learn more about one another when their names are called.

Students play with and explore prepositions during a whole group reading of Ruth Heller's Behind the Mask, and then by composing and publishing prepositional poems based on the book's style.

Students learn that the plot structure described by Freytag's Pyramid is actually quite familiar as they diagram the plots of a familiar story, a television show, and a narrative poem.

After reading John Updike's "Ex-Basketball Player," students write poems describing themselves five years in the future. The teacher takes the poems and mails them to students in five years.

Students put their heads together in a poetry circle to learn and practice different forms of poetry.

Students' groans about studying poetry may disappear with this lesson in which students read poetry from various writers and use these poems to examine the sounds and sense of language.

Students deepen and refine their understanding of prepositions by reading Ruth Heller's Behind the Mask. They write preposition poetry and create a study guide using an online tool.

Working as career counselors for a literary character, students find a job for the character, prepare a resume, and design questions and answers to prepare them for a job interview.

Students read a variety of picture books that contain elements of the hero's journey and use an online interactive tool to analyze the stories.