In this lesson, students are taught to use the Haiku format as a way to solidify the theme of their paper.  First students learn about the traditional Haiku structure, and then use the structure to reflect on the cohesiveness of the main ideas in a paper they have written.

Students analyze grammatical pet peeves with the intent to see how these errors may connect to race, class, and audience expectation.  This resource is a way to study "proper" language usage.

After listening to the read aloud Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You?, students listen for sounds that can be heard in their classroom.  They continue their learning about sound words by exploring selected websites and recording what they hear on a chart.  Those sounds words are then used to create original cinquain poems.
 

When students write argumentative or persuasive essays, they often ignore the viewpoints of their opponents, the potential readers of their essays. In this minilesson, students respond to a hypothetical situation by writing about their position on the subject. After sharing their thoughts with the class, students consider the opposite point of view and write about arguments for that position. They then compare their position with that of their potential audience, looking for areas of overlap. They then revise their arguments, with the audience's point of view and areas of commonality in mind. Examining the opposing view allows students to better decide how to counter their opponent logically, perhaps finding common ground from which their arguments might grow. Thus, the activity becomes a lesson not only in choosing arguments but also in anticipating audience reaction and adapting to it.

In this lesson, The Jolly Postman is used as an authentic example to discuss letter writing as a genre. Students explore the letters to the storybook characters delivered by The Jolly Postman. They then learn how to categorize their own examples of mail. The Jolly Postman uses well-known storybook characters, from fairy tales and nursery rhymes, as recipients of letters. This children's storybook is therefore ideal for using as a review of these genres of literature and as a means of helping children begin to explore rhyme and a variety of writing styles. Several pieces of literature appropriate for use with this lesson are suggested.

This lesson is used for discussion of a novel read by the whole class. Working individually and in groups, using symbols, drawings, shapes, and colors, alongside words and quotations, students construct a graphic of their section of the novel using an online tool and then on newsprint or butcher paper with crayons or markers. When all groups have completed their graphics, they will present them to the class, explaining why they chose the elements they used. Finished graphics can be displayed on a class bulletin board, on walls, or on a Web page. Finally, students will write an individual essay analyzing one element of the novel.

This is a lesson on history for students to gain knowledge and understanding of  what makes a hero using Martin Luther King Jr. as the prime example.  Students will explore a time line of Dr. Kings life and the major contribututions he made in order to become a hero.  By exploring his life in detail, the students will be able to compare and contrast their lives with the life of Dr. King. 

This lesson invites students to use their understanding of modern experiences with digital technologies to make active meaning of an older text, such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, by asking students to create their own modern interpretation of specific events from the drama. Students first brainstorm a list of technologies they use, and then imagine what would happen if Romeo and Juliet were set in a modern-day world and that technology was available to the characters. Students work in small groups to create technology profiles for characters in the play, and then discuss their ideas with the class. Next, students select from a variety of projects in which they re-imagine a scene from the play with modern technology incorporated. Finally, students share their projects with the class and discuss why they made the choices of scene and technology that they did.

This versatile lesson asks students to characterize and mirror the writing styles of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ernest Hemingway. With the aid of handouts provided, students first explore and identify each author's respective style then "translate" a passage written by one author into the style of the next. Finally, students use one of Aesop's Fables as a source for a final translation of either author's style. This lesson is easily adaptable to many different authors and purposes.