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Frame Story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"
Mark Twain's frame story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" provides an opportunity for a study of this story-within-a-story pattern. Using an illustrated template, class members record a plot summary of the frame story...
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Create a Playbill!
Seventh graders explore the various elements found in the advertisement of a dramatic experience. Playbills are created that reflect the plot without revealing the climax of the play. Costumes, set construction, and character description...
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Map It Out
Explore how illustrations add to a story. Young learners will look at picture books to see how the pictures tell the story. They create illustrations to go with a chosen story, and then flip the activity so they have to write a story to...
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Plot and Conflict
Learners review the literary elements of plot and conflict. In this plot and conflict lesson, students read a story and answer questions about the plot and conflict within. Learners create a concept map for the novel to identify the...
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Literature: Watching Anna
Students view the PBS presentation of Leo Tolstoy's, "Anna Karenina." Prior and after each episode, they discuss plot and characterization and in one lesson, use adjectives to describe each of the main characters. Then, students create...
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Bringing Facts Into Science Fiction
Students develop a setting, plot and characters for a science fiction story based on current news themes, and then individually write drafts of the story.
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Tortoise and Hare Races
Practice basic map skills with the story of The Tortoise and the Hare. After listening to the story, class members create a map that indicates the starting line, the path the animals took, where they stopped to rest, and the finish line....
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Fan(tom) of the Opera
Students explore the ways in which the worlds of popular music and opera can work together to complement the other. They work in small groups to analyze plot, characters, setting and themes of a popular opera using a summary of that...
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Verdi
Third graders explore language arts by answering study questions about a book they read. In this reading summary lesson, 3rd graders read the book Verdi by Janell Cannon and identify the plot, characters and sequence of the story....
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The Frog and the Ol' Black Fly
Students explore frogs. In this cross curriculum literacy and frogs lesson plan, students predict the plot and then listen to the book The Wide-Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner. Students define "predator" and identify foods a frog might...
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Earth's Warming Climate: Are We Responsible
Students examine the atmospheric data for CO2. In this web-based atmospheric instructional activity, student follow instructions to examine and plot on-line scientific data about the CO2 levels in our atmosphere and analyze the changes...
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The Fall of the Ruler
Students determine their reaction time using a ruler. In this Physics activity, students calculate the class' means and variances. They plot the graph and analyze if there are outliers.
John F. Kennedy Center
Acting Up, A Melodrama: Performing Like Jo March and Her Sisters in Little Women
Lights, Camera, Action! Pupils read Little Women and create, act, and direct a melodrama that Jo March and her sisters would enjoy. The lesson plan comes complete with resources for the educator on melodrama as well as examples for drama...
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Create a Playbill!
Middle schoolers examine the variety of elements for a written play and create a playbill. They read about and define literary elements on a worksheet, and participate in a dramatic reading. Each student then creates and publishes a...
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Pinky and Rex and the Just Right Pet
Students engage in reading comprehension activities for the story "Pinky and Rex and the Just Right Pet". For this reading comprehension lesson, students make prediction drawings before reading the story, create new illustrations for...
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Vivid Verbs
Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...
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Holes Comprehension Companion
Here is a one-stop planning resource for Louis Sachar's Newbery Award-winning book Holes. You'll find 21 links to worksheets and various activities designed to span the entire book. Learners draw to help analyze settings and make...
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Creating Comic Strips
Students recognize the elements needed to create a comic strip. In this comic strip lesson, student understand that comic strips need words and pictures. Students find differences and similarities in comic strips. Students describe how...
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Masks and Aesop's Fables
Students study and perform Aesop's fables. In this Aesop's fables lesson, students read and/or listen to a number of the famous fables. They make masks based on the characters and perform a fable using the masks. They write about the...
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Who Dropped What into the Melting Pot?
Young scholars show the movement of people to the United States from other countries on maps. They study the geographic cultural roots of foods that contribute to the melting pot of food in America. They research where an ingredient...
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Myth Connections
Ninth graders present tales and myths in the oral tradition. They discuss the African method of telling a story where each member of the group tells a part of the story. They make up a composite hero and write a story that describes...
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Frog Principal Lesson Plan
Students read the fractured fairy tale, The Frog Principal by Stephanie Calmenson and compare it to the original version in order to gain deeper understanding of the fairy tale genre. In this fairy tale lesson, students identify and...
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Magical Creatures
Students investigate entertaining characters within stories. For this writing lesson, students review nouns and adjectives and discuss magical characters. Students ask themselves questions about their selected characters and write a...