"The Lady Sings the Blues" is a multi-modal murder mystery project created as a model for use with freshmen in their final writing unit for Honors English.  In a multi-modal writing project, students can incorporate images, sound (music, podcasts, voice-overs), video, animation, clip art, etc. into their writing. Students will create and publish a variety of genres which will each give clues for the reader to discover "who done it."

The students read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and using the attached board reflect on their journey as middle schoolers.  The choices that the students are given allow for them to demonstrate their growth this year.

This collection uses primary sources to explore leaders of Latin American revolutions. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This is a guided packet used with my Yearbook Publication class.  It was designed to specifically meet standard RI.11-12.8, which is asking for students to read, understand, and evaluate legal reasoning used in US Supreme Court cases.  The cases students are required to look at in this packet are cases specifically related to student journalism and student press rights ( and ).  It is used as a guided Internet search to supplement the information presented in the journalism textbook.

ReadWorks provides a large, high quality library of curated nonfiction and literary articles, along with reading comprehension and vocabulary lessons, formative assessments, and teacher guidance. Most importantly, everything ReadWorks does is based on proven cognitive science research, not unproven academic theory.
This resource is set for a lesson on Civil Rights, connecting Jackie Robinson's letter about civil rights to MLK's letter from the Birmingham Jail.  It includes the texts for each, text dependent comprehension questions, and higher level questioning comparing and contrasting the two texts, as well as vocabulary handouts and a student worksheet.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom.

This resource will help you begin the process of understanding literary theory and schools of criticism and how they are used in the academy.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Louisa May Alcott's novel, Little Women. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

The mandala assignment allows students to demonstrate learning using figurative language in an artistic format.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the idea of Manifest Destiny and its influence. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This lesson is based on observations of the marketing department at Reinhart Food Service. As a unit for Sports Literature class, students will complete a simulation to market and present a product using advertising techniques, digital media, writing and speaking skills. In groups of three to four students, each team with choose a product or aspect of a sport to market. Some examples include a new sporting goods store, online vendor, food product like a protein powder, drink or granola bar, themed restaurant, sports equipment. (Or use your imagination!) The product may be a one-of-a-kind-invention or an improvement on or variation of a current product. Students will learn advertising techniques, discuss morals in advertising, and practice their desktop publishing skills.

Marketing teams will consider their target audience and how they want to reach that audience. They will create an advertising plan and present their products, print, radio and television advertisements to the class.

Students will present what they have learned about their plants, prayer, the Menominee language, and the traditional uses of plants by the Menominee people.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Bracero Program. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Remix this template to upload your WISELearn Grant lesson and unit plans into WISELearn

This Ted-Ed video, which can be used as a part of a writing lesson in the literature classroom, addresses the idea of finding "deeper meaning" in a literary work. It is an engaging instructional video that takes the perspective of a student who is a beginner in literary analysis writing and needs help understanding how to read with insight and acknowledge complex ideas in their work. Using two example texts (Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Morrison's ), the narrator helps students understand how to think about literature analytically prior to writing about it.

Using Beloved as a model of a work with multiple narrative perspectives, students use a visualizing activity and close reading to consider ways in which subjective values shape contradictory representations.

The cultural children's story project allows students to explore Native American culture through a new lens by authoring and illustrating children's stories that teach children between the ages of four and six a lesson or tale unique to Native cultural traditions. The exemplar stories are laminated, bound, and given as gifts to an area elementary school with a primarily Native student body. Student authors read the stories to the children, and the books become part of the children's classroom library. The children learn cultural traditions from a young age and see their mentors (often Native students as well) as role models and writers. The authors learn the skills to develop their stories from conception to publication to presentation.Cultural Children's Story Video Lesson

I include this assignment in my 11-12 Grade Native American Literature class. I usually introduce this unit after students have read the short story "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona," by Sherman Alexie (Form his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven). The story (along with pieces of his other short stories) was the inspiration for the 1998 film Smoke Signals, one of the first authentic films to examine the humor, pain, loss and struggle of reservation life.After reading the story and watching the film, students write about what makes the film authentic and how forgiveness plays into the ability to move on.We then watch the documentary film Reel Injun (2009), chronicling the evolution of Native American portrayals in film. Next, students have the opportunity to discuss the attributes of authentic Native American depictions in film and what aspects of Native culture they would like to see in film.Finally, we finish the unit by looking at the impact of stereotypes in film, especially children's films, and students watch the Disney film Pocahantas (2005) through the lens of a movie critic and write a movie review based on the film, focusing on the authenticity of racial and cultural portrayals.Video Lesson: The Evolution of Native American Representations in Film

The Native American Veterans Tribute is a slideshow project in Native American Literature class that corresponds with the Veterans Day Assembly at our high school. Veterans who are invited to the assembly are served breakfast and watch the slideshow in the Commons. Our class slideshow is incorporated into the presentation that day. It allows students to recognize relatives or or other Native military veterans and pay tribute to them.