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.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
This lesson introduces Family Message Journals - a teacher-tested tool for encouraging family involvement and supporting writing to reflect and to learn.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
The Comparison and Contrast Guide outlines the characteristics of the genre and provides direct instruction on the methods of organizing, gathering ideas, and writing comparison and contrast essays.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive
Supporting inquiry-based research projects, the Animal Inquiry interactive invites elementary students to explore animal facts and habitats using writing prompts to guide and record their findings.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive
The Listening and Learning Strand consists of a series of read_alouds organized by topics (called domains), many of which are informational in nature. The goal of the Listening and Learning Strand is for students to acquire language competence through listening, specifically building a rich vocabulary, and broad knowledge in history and science by being exposed to carefully selected, sequenced, and coherent read_alouds. The 9 units (or domains) provide lessons (including images and texts), as well as instructional objectives, core vocabulary, and assessment materials. The domain topics include: Fighting for a Cause; Fairy Tales and Tall Tales; Cycles in Nature; Insects; Ancient Greek Civilizations; Greek Myths; Charlotte's Web; and Immigration.
Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study
Students can map out the key literary elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution as prewriting for their own fiction or as analysis of a text by another author in this secondary-level interactive.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive
Students work in groups to create annotated book reviews with links to topics of interest related to their book.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
Students take their ideas from the classroom page to the community pavement when they participate in a service-learning project based on their multimedia presentations.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
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.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
In this lesson, athletics, aesthetics, and poetics intersect in new ways as developing literacy learners experiment together with the forms of language.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Students use the Profile Publisher to draft online social networking profiles, yearbook profiles, and newspaper or magazine profiles for themselves, other real or fictional characters.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive
The Letter Generator is a useful tool for students to learn the parts of a business or friendly letter and then compose and print letters for both styles of correspondence.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive
Students will learn to mind their ps and qs in this lesson on etiquette and appropriate behavior in the classroom.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Inspired by their curiosity about animals, students work together to research an animal of their choice and present the information they gather to an authentic audience.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
In this activity, students read short stories and create presentations in multiple media to share in a Short Story Fair. At the fair, students explore and respond to the displays.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
The Webbing Tool provides a free-form graphic organizer for activities that ask students to pursue hypertextual thinking and writing.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive
Students will have a whale of a good time in this lesson in which they use fiction and nonfiction texts to write a letter to an online scientist.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
Students compare the traits fact and fiction by using a Venn diagram to compare fiction and nonfiction books about Native Americans.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
Doctors, astrophysicists, and daycare providers are only some of the careers that will be explored in this lesson in which students research careers and publish occupational summaries about them.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Do their minds go blank when they confront a blank piece of paper? Speedwriting can help students get started on writing and come up with topics to write about. They can then incorporate their key ideas and phrases into a narrative with the help of a graphic story organizer.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
