Imagine using a six-sided cube to encourage readers to analyze a topic in greater depth. Create a cube, label each of the six sides with one of Bloom's comprehension levels, and you're ready to launch a discussion of a text....

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

A reading of Dr. Seuss's My Many Colored Days provides a great intro for a discussion of colors and how they can represent emotions and moods. Kids share the feelings they associate with various colors

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," from The Jungle Book, offers young readers a chance to examine how Rudyard Kipling uses setting and personification to bring to life the brave mongoose who battles cobras to protect his family. Class members...

When Europeans first came back with tales of China, they provided vivid written accounts and minimal visual imput. This resulted in art rendered mostly from descriptive language. Learners explore this phenomena by listening to...

Young artists will respond to reading children's literature, by engaging in original storytelling and representing their own images through the visual arts. Then they orally describe details of people, places, and things in their stories...

Learners read and explore one of Emily Dickinson's nature poems, "A Bird Came Down the Walk-" through interaction with a variety of art forms. Clips of a hymn to hear meter and the viewing of bird images exposes them to the language and...

“Romanticism aims at enlarging experience by exploring the real.” This excerpt from Jacques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence introduces a PowerPoint that examines the characteristics of and the major figures in music, art, and literature...

Students write a class letter to a local policeman asking him to come and talk to the class and create a list of safety tips as a class. Students research information on police dogs: type of dogs used, where they come form, how they are...

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...

Posing an introductory question about the reflection of culture within art, this lecture on African art forms will garner intrigue and imagination. From oral tradition (the African griot), to images of African masks and Western...

Integrating art into your classroom every day just got easier. This fantastic idea provides 43 strips intended to keep early finishers busy and to bring art into the classroom. You cut the strips, put them in a drawer, and have early...

Introduce your class to the elements of Romanticism with these slides. The foundations of the movement, the roles of imagination and nature, and the value of art are all highlighted. Features of Romanticism are explained such as...

Fifth graders develop and practice the steps involved in imaginative writing. They follow the steps/worksheets included and write imaginative stories of their own.

Even the littlest learners can become art historians if they have the right training. For the lesson, your preschoolers discuss the piece Long Jakes as they point out all the details they notice. They discuss what mountains and mountain...

Imagine having the opportunity to create your own country. After responding to questions about chapter two, readers of George Orwell's dystopian classic are given a chance to design a utopia for one-million people, complete with...

Write with the senses! Try using art to inspire writers to consider all of the senses. Here, the class is divided in half. Each group looks at one of two images, imagines the senses that would be engaged, and records answers to five...

Tenth graders examine the artistic legacy of trains by comparing the representations of trains in the painting of Turner and the photographs of Terry Evans. They write an essay, story or poem using their own observations of trains,...

An excellent language arts activity. Learners read seven sentences and determine if each is simple, compound, or complex. In order to practice sentence combining, young writers join 10 sets of sentences to form compound sentences, and...

Pupils read speeches and identify the main idea as well as the literary techniques employed, paying careful attention to the persuasion and repetition elements that each speech possesses. Using a graphic organizer, they analyze,...

Reinforce comprehension of informational text. This is a one-on-one lesson plan intended to build an internal dialogue the reader can use to boost overall comprehension. They work independently with a tutor or teacher to read a...

Students explore characterization in Little Women. In this literature lesson, students participate in written analysis and research in order to explore Alcott's characterization in the novel.

Five questions and pictures make up a collection of writing assignments that spark imagination and reinforce creative writing skills. Class members respond to each question based on their observations of each picture. 

Colonization, cartography, and circumnavigation. After reading a short article about early explorations, kids use the information provided to answer a series of comprehension questions.