Analyze magazines as a class, looking carefully for the target audience, advertisements, and topics presented. Small groups then work as a publication team and receive a magazine that they have to "sell." Each individual has a different...

Students work through a Haiku Organizer to determine the characteristics they use to write eight haiku poems on a theme that they choose. They design presentation folders of their completed work.

Now these are learning activities full of fun, art, and cultural exploration. Kids consider the art of storytelling through comic book images. They then look at the Tale of Genji as it was written in the 11th century. They discuss...

Let's Look Around! is the theme of a unit that offers a plethora of challenge activities. Enhance your scholars' learning experiences and reinforce concepts with activities such as writing a book about farm animals, an...

Looking for a great lesson on how to write a biography? Here, middle schoolers draw from magazine articles, novels, historical figures, and current events to choose a person, or character to write about in a biography. They follow a...

Has life changed for American women in the last century, or are there common themes between the lives of 21st century women and the struggle of suffragettes from the 1910s? Explore the ways media reflects the position of women...

Young writers generate descriptive words. They use pictures of various landscapes (from books, magazines, or the Internet) and complete a story pyramid. The pyramid (included here) asks to describe the main character, the setting, and...

Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...

Students read accounts of children during the Holocaust and read Elie Wiesel's "Night". Using the internet, they share ideas and discuss topics with peers across the nation. They examine the role of the individual in the Holocaust and...

Students read and prepare a new oral version of a selected fairy tale. They read and compare/contrast two fairy tales and identify the main story elements. In small groups they create a new oral version of one they fairy tales and...

Investigate milestones along the path that lead to the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. After researching key people, events, court cases, and legislative orders, teams present their findings as a magazine, newspaper, or...

Use photography to inspire similes and metaphors. Kids rifle through magazines and pictures you've brought to use them as inspiration. They choose two and create a metaphor or simile to accompany their display. Consider hanging these on...

Students use Moodle to participate in a chat session to complete a character analysis for a novel they've studied. In this novel analysis and technology lesson, students are assigned a character from a specific chapter and use Moodle to...

Pupils use reading strategies for Night of the Twister. In this reading strategies lesson, students name five major catastrophes and books about each. Pupils complete a vocabulary section, make inferences and predictions, read the story...

Students examine wordless books and other pictures in order to learn how the teacher "reads a picture" to tell a story about it. In this early writing lesson, students then create their own picture for story telling by painting....

Do your classes love reading and drawing cartoons? Middle schoolers read an editorial cartoon from a newspaper. They discuss the cartoonist's topic, audience, and purpose. Next, they brainstorm questions they have about the cartoon and...

Pupils create and present a theme-based exhibition. In this design lesson, students categorize objects to reflect a specific design theme and create their own theme-based collections. Pupils research a museum collection to discover how...

Young scholars complete a variety of activities related to the book "Because of Winn-Dixie" by Kate DiCamillo. They create a scrapbook of the characters in the book, play a reading comprehension maze game, and participate in an online...

Students identify and interpret the value of the dragonfly as a predator of the mosquito. They create their own folktales using the dragonfly or a creature of their choice to solve the malaria problem or another issue. Students also...

Students investigate their cultural heritage and make observations on how much influence their past has on their current values and lifestyle. They brainstorm a list of things that represent a certain country or cultural heritage and...

Twelfth graders examine personification and alliteration in various reading selections. They read magazine articles, brochures, and advertisements, identify the examples of personification and alliteration, and create a business name...

Sixth graders complete the magazine template in the Macmillan "Writer's Journal" available through the basic skills department using word processing, spreadsheet, graphic, and electronic resource (i.e.-Internet) skills

Students explore California's authors and their lives. In this author study, students research different authors from California. They create podcasts about their authors, walking the audience through the author's life and points of...

Students explore agriculture by participating in a role-play activity. In this farm to fork lesson, students ask and answer questions as though they were a specific plant about to be eaten. Students write responses to critical thinking...