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Nursery Rhyme
After reading several types of informational and narrative text involving Nursery Rhymes, have your young readers create a dramatic reading of their selected tale to perform for the class.
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Owl Eyes.
Students create an animal with clay and use toothpick to draw or carve features. Students write descriptions of their animal and tell why they created it in a certain way. Students write legends on their own, perhaps using their created...
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Style and Voice
Develop the writing skills of your high school class. Writers consider their personal style and voice, read selections by other authors, and then write pieces that challenge them to experiment with their own style.
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Lesson Plan 8: Setting and Mood
What mood does this story evoke? How are setting and mood linked? Young novelists explore the different emotions brought about by writing, starting by journaling things that inspire their own feelings. Examine the word mood, looking into...
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Visualize and Draw to Increase Comprehension
Improve readers' comprehension with a pair of visualization opportunities. First they listen, eyes closed, as you read a description from Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, and discuss ideas about what they "see." After you read...
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Implied Main Idea
Reinforce main idea and supporting details with your seventh graders in this language arts lesson. Using a SMART board presentation and handouts (all attachments are provided), they review and practice finding main idea and details in...
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Describing Words
First graders practice using describing words. In this descriptive word lesson, 1st graders read the story The Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs and match the pig descriptions to their names. They play a game where they describe an object...
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Mexico Field Trip
Explore how the library or Internet resources function as textual information. Young writers research a chosen topic then read and comprehend the collected information. They structure the information with texts and graphics for a...
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Passport to Africa
Young scholars begin the instructional activity by reading a novel about the diversity of geography in Africa. They are to create an oral report based on information they research. They also communicate with someone through email about...
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Children's Literature Across the Curriculum Ideas-How Dogs Really Work!
Students read How Dogs Really Work! by Alan Snow. They complete a variety of cross-curricular activities surrounding the study of dogs as pets. Included are reading, art, math, science, writing, social studies, and library connections.
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Parts of a Cell Analogy
Middle schoolers reinforce comprehension of the parts of a cell. Theyl synthesize this content knowledge in a descriptive paragraph writing assignment.
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Hawthorne: Author and Narrator
Learners examine the difference between a narrator and author. They read Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, 'The Scarlet Letter,' write a description of the narrator, and research how Hawthorne was impacted by the politics of the time.
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Writing - Fiction
After listening to the opening description in Of Mice and Men, high schoolers try their hand at writing a short story that includes a mugging. The story should include all five senses. Each of the pupils reads their opening paragraph to...
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Book Ads
Students observe book ads from Reading Rainbow and decide on a book to write an ad for. They prepare an ad and produce it using a digital camcorder and software.
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Apple Adjectives
Study different apple varieties and use appropriate adjectives to describe them. Learners alphabetize both the apple names and the adjectives before creating spreadsheet, bar, and pie graphs. A mix of language arts, technology, and...
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"Book Report Gallery" Bulletin Board
Read all about it! A camera is all you need to create a fun bulletin board promoting books. Take pictures of readers holding their favorite books and position comic-book style talk bubbles over the pictures. Created with markers and...
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Book Buffet
Students are encouraged to develop a love for reading by sampling different types of literature. They are encouraged to read one of the books that is sampled. The sample should be challenging for the reader without causing discouragement.
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Main Idea
What could you pack for a trip if you don't know the destination? After writing a list of items they would want to bring, fourth graders learn that the "trip" is to the South Pole - revealing the need to understand all available...
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Magical Creatures Land
The opening of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit provides a model of how to use rich details to create a setting. After reading the description of Bilbo Baggins’ abode, young writers create their own magical home for a fantasy creature. The...
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Compare and Contrast: Literary Analysis
Great for a reading intervention or remedial Language Arts class, this lesson uses two stories from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III ("Terri Jackson" and "Mary Lou" to reinforce note-taking skills, story elements, and comparing and...
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Symphonic Poetry (SMART Board Lesson)
Let music and poetry collide in this well-orchestrated language arts lesson plan. After studying program music and C. Debussy's Prelude to an Afternoon Faun, view the attached SMART board lesson plan to read through "Fog" by Carl...
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Vocabulary Bingo: Fever 1793
Prior to reading Fever 1793, class members are introduced to vocabulary drawn from the text of Laurie Halse Anderson's novel with a bingo-style activity. The vocabulary list, a teacher copy with definitions, and the bingo template are...
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The Cure: Guided Imagery
Prepare class members for a discussion of Sonia Levitin's dystopian novel The Cure, by leading them on a guided imagery exercise designed to encourage visualization of written descriptions.
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Flat Stanley Travels to U.S. Regions
Fourth Graders read the book Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. In the story a bulletin board flattens the main character. He is then sent in an envelope to a friend in California. During a fantasy genre language arts unit, groups of students...