Seven poems paired with seven original works of art provide learners an opportunity to draw connections between literary and artistic interpretations. Designed to augment a study of the Holocaust, each pair is accompanied by discussion...

Bob Dylan's selection as the 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first songwriter ever to receive the honor, has focused the attention of a new generation on the work of the legendary artist. Class members...

Colorful contemporary images contained in a PowerPoint presentation will capture the attention of class members and model for them the how to distinguish between the subject and the theme of a work. A great want to introduce this...

Young writers get a jump start on story telling by selecting a plot, a setting, and multiple character cards and then use these basic elements to create a tale.

Working in teams, pairs, or individually, scholars select one resource from a gallery of historical sources and consider which examples might be considered propaganda, the techniques used to persuade audiences, and evaluate how the...

Choose any passage that uses punctuation effectively and analyze it with your class. Learners read the passage out loud once, ignoring the punctuation. Then they read it again, but this time paying attention to all of the punctuation....

Discuss the importance of a lead in writing with your upper graders. They examine several examples of leads from literature and practice writing leads for pieces of artwork. They then select a topic from a list and write an introductory...

Imagine a list that includes Alan Abelson of Baron's, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, and Mother Jones. High schoolers select a national columnist, read and annotate five columns by this author, noting the rhetorical...

Students identify and use the four types of brainstorming techniques used in essay prewriting. They select an appropriate attention getting statement to attract the essay reader. Students explore the purpose and methods of selecting...

Read a sample of creative descriptive writing to your science class. Discuss how writing can be used to record and communicate observations that scientists make. Reading selections and thought-provoking questions are suggested. Also...

After making predictions about Janell Cannon's story Verdi, middle schoolers read through the book and make a new list of descriptions, personality traits, etc. They select an animal and write a narrative story about the animal, paying...

A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is famous, in part, because it established a uniquely American form of humor. For this famous story, Mark Twain combines the tall-tale, the dialect story, and satire. Here is a resource...

Do you like music? Have your youngsters read We Play Music, practicing select reading strategies, like using picture clues to determine new words. Then, after their first independent read, have them re-read the story to a...

Do you know Clifford, the big, red dog? Clifford takes an adventure to see his family, and young readers join him to learn some new vocabulary in context! Before reading, introduce the four new words: city, county,...

Franklin the turtle is on another adventure in Paulette Bourgeois' book Franklin Goes to the Hospital, and there are plenty of new words for your young readers to explore as they hear this story. Although you can include more,...

Just like your budding readers may have felt, Froggy is nervous on his first day of school. Use Johnathan London's book Froggy Goes to School to practice vocabulary in context. Prior to reading the story aloud, pre-teach the new words...

Are your scholars interested in bugs? Get future entomologists excited about vocabulary through Joanne Oppenheim's colorful book Have You Seen Bugs? They use the informational text (although this strategy is useful for any book) to...

With both rhyme and a fun storyline, Polly Cameron's story "I Can't," Said the Ant is a useful resource for vocabulary in context. Emerging readers focus on five key words: cooperate, mend, nimble,...

Use the Caldecott Award-winning book Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (which can be found on YouTube if you don't have it) to guide budding readers through vocabulary in context. Although the...

What is Miss Bindergarten up to now? Joseph Slate's story Miss Bindergarten Stays Home is an excellent resource for budding readers to practice five vocabulary words in context: advise, lesson, lovely,...

Learning new vocabulary words is best done in the context of an engaging story like David Kirk's Miss Spider's Tea Party. New readers (or almost-readers) focus on any of 12 new words: conceal, courtesy, demand, descend, dread,...

Your classroom may feel like a zoo sometimes, but it's nothing like this! Stu Smith's book My School's a Zoo is an excellent way to introduce some fun vocabulary words in context, and it's available on YouTube in case...

Lisa Peters presents macroevolution as a large-scale family tree in her book Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story. She suggests the process from single-celled organisms to modern-day humans, and learners explore new vocabulary...