The metaphor of a pot of soup and a series of colorful templates remind young writers of the elements that make for a rich story. Pepper the plot with carrot/character, potato/point of view, corn/conflict, tomato/theme, and season with...

5 Broken Cameras, the award-winning documentary nominated for a 2013 Academy Award and winner of the Sundance 2012 Directors Award is the focus of a resource packet that includes a lesson plan, discussion guide, reading lists, background...

How does reading a drama differ from reading a novel? Middle schoolers become playwrights and explore these differences. After viewing the A&E movie,"The Crossing," groups create stage directions, write dialogue, and design sets and...

Combining visual and language arts, here is a resource that prompts middle schoolers to write stories based on pictures of their surroundings. They use digital cameras to take pictures of favorite areas in the school. Next, they choose...

Students employ their technology skills to produce campaign commercials. In this political campaign lesson, students discover the appropriate uses of video cameras and create fictitious campaign commercials.

Scholars, in groups, gather information relating to community health care. Using video and digital cameras, they interview members of a health center staff. They then compile digital images, select music, and narrate a story about their...

Fifth graders explore sequential dramatization through children's literature. In this drama lesson, 5th graders act out and record scenes using digital and video cameras.  Students create a digital poster using pictures from their...

Students focus on different ways director and cinematographers use the camera to convey meaning, setting, tone, point of view, personal style, as well as telling a story.

Students take a picture and create a writing piece. In this creative writing lesson, students use a digital camera to take a picture and then zoom in on what interests them. They use this picture as inspiration as the character, setting,...

Fifth graders discover the history of their hometown Des Moines River.  In this U.S. Geography lesson plan students speak with Iowans that tell stories of the settlers and early villages near the Des Moines River.  Students...

While music lyrics are often used to teach literary elements, the richness of this resource comes from the wealth of exercises, activities, and support materials provided in the packet.  Although designed for gifted learners, the...

Invite your kids to tell all sorts of stories with this interactive app. Learners view images and record their own voices as as they create short narratives to go along with the images. The app provides plenty of...

Twelfth graders interview themselves reflecting on various topics.  For this self-reflection lesson, 12th graders video tape four different interviews throughout the year of themselves discussing various topics, with the last prompt...

It's hard to find inspiration; have your learners bring in a slew of magazines and search for inspiring pictures! They look for characters, setting, and possibly even conflict clues. They analyze the pictures they select, turn their...

When would two paws up denote a blockbuster film in your classroom? Only when young writers create movie reviews from a pet's perspective in this imaginative expository writing practice. This engaging topic begins with a class discussion...

Class groups collaborate to produce the storyboard for their video project. After determining the sequence of scenes, the camera angles, and characters in each scene, each group member is assigned a number of scenes to illustrate. When...

Paired reading passages frequently appear on standardized exams, but finding text sets to use in the classroom is sometimes a challenge. A lesson plan on using paired texts includes a selection of passages and a graphic organizer for...

Lights, camera, action! Math educators consider how to improve their instruction by examining a model of the five-practice problem-solving model involving a movie theater. Participants examine cognitive demand in relation to problem...

Denali National Park and the rain forests of Brazil are the settings for a series of lessons on animal encounters with grizzly bears and golden lion tamarins. The 32-page packet includes scripted lesson plans, activity suggestions, and...

Imagine using your smart phone or tablet to grade a class set of quizzes in less than a minute. Imagine getting immediate results and being able to give immediate feedback. No hunting for scantrons. No waiting in line for the scantron...

Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...

Students use photography to create art projects.

High schoolers discover how setting, props, and character-action communicate information about the characters and the story. Access to videos and a video camera are important to make this lesson a success.

Do your class members complain they don’t know what to write about? Give them disposable cameras and ask them to take pictures of 12 things that make them happy. After the pictures are developed, they are pasted on a poster board and...