Continue work on the two-piece poem that compares two characters from Esperanza Rising. Give class members a few minutes to finish their drafts. After they have a complete product, model how to critique and edit the poems with one group....

They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid's Poems by David Bowles is the focus of a five-week language arts unit unit. Fifth graders listen to various poems and participate in thoughtful discussions, examining vocabulary and learning new words in...

Class members use the think-pair-share strategy to compare the views of W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington and to consider how each man's backgrounds influenced his philosophy.

What do Lady Gaga and Dame Edith Sitwell have in common? As they examine Sitwell's poetry, class members learn that the similarities are far more than their unique appearance.

The poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the focus of a unit that asks readers to consider how an artist's life and changes in society influences his or her work. After careful study of Whitman's and Dickinson's perspectives on...

How can something be true even if it didn't happen? Invite your classes to investigate the truths found in the world of magical realism as they analyze short stories, poems, informational texts, video, and art from this genre.

Contemplate what music learners listen to and why they listen. Can they find poetry within music lyrics? Specifically hone in on blues lyrics and ruminate upon the social issues prevalent in the themes. Particular song lyrics coincide...

Add a strong poetry lesson to your literature unit. Middle and high schoolers investigate their writing voices with journaling and group discussion, then choose a famous poet to study. They write letters to their chosen poets, explaining...

What is stereotyping, and how do we handle stereotyping in our daily interactions? Your young historians will not only have the opportunity to learn about the first African American woman to publish a short story–Frances Ellen...

After reading Loree Leedy's There's a Frog in My Throat: 440 Animal Sayings a Little Bird Told Me, kids create and illustrate their own poems that convey the meaning of an idiom. The poems are then transferred into Shutterfly's Photo...

Your learners will be tantalized by this inquiry-based, collaborative activity as they discover how to write an equation that represents the height of an ice cream cone. Given the scenario based on the poem, "Eighteen Flavors," and...

In his 2013 introduction to Fahrenheit 451, Neil Gaiman states, “Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” In this extraordinary unit plan, readers "explore the power of written language to educate and...

Oh, what fun! Young logophiles and neologists create a dictionary-sounding definition for imaginary words and try to fool their classmates.

Looking to improve your classes literacy program? Then look no further. This comprehensive collection of resources includes worksheets and activities covering everything from r-controlled vowels and consonant digraphs, to the...

After watching the documentary Dark Water about a traditional Chumash ceremony and reading a Chumash origin story, viewers are asked to create a coat of arms and to craft an essay that details a family tradition or their own origin story.

Encourage readers to determine if Hamlet's madness is actually divinest sense. Class members analyze the words of the play before studying related texts, including T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," scenes from...

Who are we and what shapes our identities? Seventh graders work to answer this question as they learn how to write a memoir. Full of non-print resources and supplemental texts that range from fiction to non-fiction, scholars write their...

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Engage and entertain young learners with this collection of readers theatre activities. With over 25 different scripts, a wide range of topics are covered from simple counting and rhyming exercises to adaptions of popular children's...