Tools for Schools
Book Creator
Build beautiful books in whatever style you'd like with an intuitive and adaptable app for constructing books. Kids can add images, drawings, text, and audio to make books about any subject. When complete, learners can wrap up the...
Curated OER
Texas Kid Writes Book About Presidents
Arranged into small groups, learners read a paragraph of the news story "Texas Kid Writes Book About Presidents." As one reads, others mark the text (underlining important information and writing notes in the margin of the story). After...
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A Primary Source Picture Book
Travel through Europe with ten-year-old Teddy Roosevelt in this writing activity, which uses the picture book My Tour of Europe: by Teddy Roosevelt, by Ellen Jackson. After reading the book, readers compare it to passages from The...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
From Ben’s Pen to Our Lives
What would Ben do? Jumping off from the pseudonymous letters Ben Franklin fooled his older brother into publishing when he was still a teenager, young literary lovers dive into acting, writing, and addressing a local issue with wit and...
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Let's Get Critical!
Students write a letter to a classmate recommending a favorite book and brainstorm ways in which a person would encourage others to read a book, focusing on specific elements of novels.
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Book Discussions via Web 2.0
Pupils discuss books they read via web 2.0. and create a wiki and podcast that will present the audience with their select a book by a popular teen author and write a short script about the book. Students and type the critic of the book...
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Practice Makes It Better
Use the Internet to expand the audience for portfolio writings and motivate young writers to edit their work. Have your class members select a piece of writing from their portfolios to be polished and published on the World Wide Web....
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Reading Blog Log
Bring technology to your novel unit with this lesson, which prompts readers to analyze a book they are reading in a Socratic discussion with their classmates. They create a live blog online in which they can give their opinions and...
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Works Cited Activity
Awesome! Teach your writers and researchers how to create a works cited page by giving them this activity. Their assignment is to create a proper works cited page that uses a list of different magazine articles, books, and poems. All of...
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Go for the Gold!
The options are vast with this Ancient Greece and Olympics research project! Using Scholastic online resources, historians have interactive and educational supports to guide them through researching and writing about the 2004 Olympics in...
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Character Development Project
Read Dangerous Minds with your language learning disabled pupils to identify characteristics and connect to literature. This is a specific activity intended for use with the suggested book. The class uses a character map  as a way to...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Faulkner's As I Lay Dying: Concluding the Novel
As I Lay Dying is a beautiful book and a wonderful vehicle for understanding, interpreting, and comparing themes. The class reads and analyzes the novel, discusses possible interpretations, and characterizations. They compare the themes...
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'P' Is for Poetry
Learners write rhymes for each letter of the alphabet. In this rhyming lesson plan, students come up with various words that could rhyme for each letter. Once they come up with rhymes for each, they publish them in a book along with...
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The age of majority: How old is old enough?
Young scholars research on the Web and in books the "age of majority" in general and how it applies in their particular states. Explore, too, "emancipation" and whether this is another way for teens to earn additional rights. Students...
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Writing a Query Letter
Learners examine how to write a query letter to a publisher. They plan a short story they would like to write, conduct Internet research about possible publishers, and write a sample query letter.
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2002: The Year In Review
Students research and create a book highlighting significant events and trends throughout the world in the year 2002. Then, through creative writing, they respond to the events or trends themselves and how they affected our world.
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Return Of The Living Dead
Students research endangered animal species that have 'beaten the odds' as they continue to survive longer than scientists had expected. They write individual pages for a class book about endangered species.
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Use Or Abuse?
Students explain the meaning of "use value" of nature's resources by researching and writing studenT books personifying an aspect of nature. They produce public service announcements regarding use value for their local community.
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Teen Angst
Students gain a broader understanding of new scientific research about the life cycle of the Tyrannosaur, and translate their knowledge into the creation of an illustrated studenT book produced and created by the entire class.
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Create a Cookbook
Trios write, design, and produce cookbooks. In a truly collaborative project, they choose what content to include, contribute recipes, and decide on formatting. Then, they reformat all recipes to ensure consistent style, publish the...
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Writing and Sharing Community Stories
Students use interviewing skills to explore and express the culture of their community. In this literacy/writing lesson, students interview a community member as a basis for a biographical writing project. Each class member contributes a...
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Writing with Writers
Pupils participate in Writing with Writer's, a step-by-step set of directions aimed at improving different genres of student writing. They identify the characteristics of different genres and follow a specified writing process to produce...
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Progressive Newspapers
Young scholars create a newspaper on local, state and national issues in the muckracking style of progessive era journalism. They research the style by reading articles from the time period on women's sufrage, child labor laws and...
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The Sorcerers Shown
Students consider the different genres of literary and movie characters. In this character types lesson, students brainstorm character genres from books and movies. Students read the article 'Which Wizard Beats 'Em All?' and develop...