Everyone knows that "Star Wars" character Darth Vader is a villain. This lesson asks students to explore how they know such things about heroes and villains they encounter in texts. After examining how moviemakers communicate the villainy of Darth Vader, students examine a passage from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that describes the villain Voldemort, noting how Rowling communicates details about the character. Students then read novels in small groups, with each group member tracking a character in a reading log. When they finish their novels, students design posters and present details on their novels to the class. After the presentations, students make observations on how authors develop character and write journal entries reflecting on what they learned.

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.

Students learn how to walk a mile in someone else's shoes by reading historical fiction about the Underground Railroad.

Students develop their reading, writing, research, and technology skills using graphic novels. As a final activity, students create their own graphic novels using comic software.

Students evaluate book reviews written by other children, discussing their components and effectiveness, and write reviews of favorite books to record on video or post online.

Folk tales and fairy tales are of interest to and part of the language arts curriculum for young learners. This lesson supports the study of this genre and the study of irregular patterns and letter-sound relationships related to decoding and spelling. After reading the folk tale Jack and the Beanstalk, students discuss the word giant and its beginning sound. Students then create their own lists of words that begin with the same sound. Then, students are introduced to words with the soft g sound and create a new list of words with this beginning sound. As a culminating activity, students work individually or in groups to categorize animal names into groups according to their beginning g sound.

Students analyze the concepts of identity, stereotyping, and discrimination by reading picture books; identify how these concepts are dealt with in each book; and discuss concrete actions to stop discrimination.

Looking to help students practice "reading" images for a variety of contextual meanings while engaging in content area study? This lesson uses images of the Boston Massacre to deepen students' comprehension of both the event and the effects of propaganda. Students begin by completing an anticipation guide to introduce them to Boston Massacre, propaganda, and British/colonial reactions to the massacre. They then complete an image analysis to make inferences about various images of the massacre. The culminating activity-a presentation about students' observations and inferences-demonstrates students' knowledge of the Boston Massacre and propaganda in a variety of ways. This lesson benefits English-language learners (ELLs) and struggling readers because it involves viewing images, participating in discussions, working with peers, and listening to a read-aloud that reinforces the lesson content and vocabulary.

Working in small groups, students read and discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir "Night" and then take turns assuming the teacher role, as the class works with four different comprehension strategies.

This interactive tool allows students to create Venn diagrams that contain two or three overlapping circles, enabling them to organize their information logically.

Students explore a variety of sources for information about voting. They evaluate the information to determine if it is fact or opinion, and then create a graffiti wall about voting.

Questions about weather clear up when students use what they learned from their books to create a presentation to share with the rest of the class.

Students analyze the elements of a novel in many different genres and then hyperlink these pieces together on student-constructed Websites.

In this lesson, designed for a heterogeneous group of students that includes English-language learners, students work together to plan a website based on their home knowledge. An introductory lesson outlines the structure and components of simple websites (home page, titles, headings, links). Students take home and complete a bilingual student and family interest survey, then work in groups of four or five to identify common themes among the responses. Each group makes a flow chart to think graphically about the contents of their planned website. Each student keeps a project notebook to record new ideas, summarize group work, and share the project with family members. The teacher can make the planned websites a reality using one of the online website-building platforms in the Resources list.

Past meets present in this lesson in which students practice verb tense when they write personal short stories that they then publish in a flip book.

This online activity helps students recognize word patterns by having them sort a series of words into short-vowel word families.

Explore the similarities and differences among words typically considered synonyms with this tool that allows middle- and secondary-level students organize groups of words by connotation on one axis and by register on another.

Bookworms will enjoy the bytes they find in this lesson as they research and share information about online library services in places around the world.

Students use the faces and places they learn about in their research to write a biography about a contemporary or historical figure.

This lesson encourages young students to see themselves as writers with a message to convey. Three types of reports are provided to show what kindergartners and emergent writers can do.