Students explore the ballads genre by reading medieval ballads to deduce their characteristics, acting out the ballads, comparing medieval and modern ballads using Venn diagrams, and composing their own ballads.
Students analyze images of Oscar Wilde used to publicize his 1882 American lecture tour. They then compare a caricature to another researched image, sharing this analysis in a podcast.
It is important for students to know how to evaluate messages conveyed by the news media. Exploration of the artistic techniques used in political cartoons leads to critical questioning.
Students explore and analyze the techniques that political (or editorial) cartoonists use and draw conclusions about why the cartoonists choose those techniques to communicate their messages.
In this lesson, students learn to ask the right questions about the validity of surveys.
There's no question that students will be able to compose good survey questions by the end of this lesson.
Students listen to fiction and nonfiction read-alouds and explore selected Websites to identify factual information about animals. This lesson focuses on ants, but can be adapted to any animal.
Students analyze World War II posters, as a group and then independently, to explore how argument, persuasion and propaganda differ.
Students' responses to this lesson will be out of this world after they've researched astronomy to write poetry and compile a poetry book.
Students explore using electronic messaging and Internet abbreviations for specific purposes and examine the importance of using a more formal style of writing based on their audience.
Students keep a daily diary that records how and when they listen to audio texts, then analyze the details and compare their results to published reports on American radio listeners.
Turn summer reading lists from a teacher-centered requirement to a student-driven exploration by asking students to create brochures and flyers that suggest books to explore during the summer months.
Students use their emerging writing skills to write shopping lists. They work within a budget, use problem-solving skills to create lists, and buy their favorite treats at the class store.
This lesson uses "One Green Apple" by Eve Bunting to teach how characters change across a text. It will also guide students through writing an epilogue to accompany their independent book.
Students examine familiar car names for underlying connotations then proceed through a series of steps, increasing their control over language, until they select words with powerful connotations in their own writing.
Students engage in a brief writing assignment that concretely illustrates how language and gender stereotyping interact causally.
Through this lesson, primary students strengthen their phonemic awareness while using picture books featuring alliteration as models for their own writing.
This lesson will be turning heads and pages as students learn how to choose appropriate books for independent reading exercises and later evaluate their choices.
Children find favorite words, phrases, and sentences from familiar stories. Working together, they combine their words and phrases to create a poem. The poem is then shared as performance poetry.
Students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using lists of accurate, powerful adjectives.