Students explore what Carol Jago calls the place "where life and art intersect" by reading Nikki Giovanni's poem, "Nikki-Rosa," and then writing about childhood memories of their own.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
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.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
It's important to "hook" readers at a story's beginning, but it's equally important to keep them interested. In this lesson, students learn to write effective conclusions to their own stories.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
History has many faces in this lesson in which students read Jane Addams Award-winning books to learn about peace, social justice, world community, and equality.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
Though teachers usually caution students against using sentence fragments, Edgar Schuster's work demonstrates that professional writers often use fragments effectively. This lesson helps students understand that there are reasons that they can and should use sentence fragments to become effective writers.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
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.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
Students and the teacher produce a class book through a group-writing activity, focusing on a basic before-during-after sequence of events.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
One of the most difficult aspects of writing is keeping audience in mind throughout the writing process. Developing lessons that support this strategy for writing is essential in the elementary classroom. This lesson supports first-grade students in learning about audience. Through interactive writing, students work together to create a genuine invitation letter for a group of their peers. In addition to the interactive writing experience, students work independently to create invitation letters for their families. Extension activities include conducting additional interactive writing experiences, reading books with samples of letters, and creating invitations at a learning center.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
In this minilesson, students explore the use of dialogue tags such as "he said" or "she answered" in picture books and novels, discussing their purpose, form, and style.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
This lesson describes how small groups of students can plan meetings to discuss what they've read in a "just for fun" book club they've organized - and that they control.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Students explore familiar literary characters, usually first encountered as adults, but whose childhood stories are only told later. Students then create childhoods for adult characters from books of their choice.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Through listing and observation, students identify the many texts that they read and compose: including books and magazines, television shows, movies, audio broadcasts, hypertexts, and animations.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Students read sonnets, charting the poems' characteristics and using their observations to deduce traditional sonnet forms. They then write original sonnets, using a poem they have analyzed as a model.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Students use the faces and places they learn about in their research to write a biography about a contemporary or historical figure.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
Students explore the menu genre by analyzing existing menus from local restaurants. They review adjectives and descriptive writing and then work in groups to create their own custom menus.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Paper and pixels get compared in this lesson in which students compare both printed and online versions of a magazine.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Students are exposed to wordless picture books and begin developing story lines, both orally and in writing, using an online, interactive story map.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Students analyze their past readings and use that knowledge to create reading plans for the future.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
What's that sound? Students participate in a Directed Listening-Thinking Activity (DLTA) using "The Tell-Tale Heart," make predictions, and respond in the form of an acrostic poem or comic strip.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
After reading "All Quiet on the Western Front", students discuss the novel's ironic ending, then compose alternate titles and endings for the book, and design new book covers.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
