1 Analyzing Advice as an Introduction to Shakespeare Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grade 8 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students read and analyze the advice texts by reading newspaper columns and Shakespearean passages. The lesson begins with the exploration of a newspaper column and its recording.... 2 Cooking Up Descriptive Language: Designing Restaurant Menus Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students explore the genre of menus by analyzing menus from local restaurants. They review adjectives and practice descriptive writing based on the language included in the menu examples.... 3 Fanatically Grammatically Correct: Discovering the Uses of Punctuation Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 8–12 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students reflect on how punctuation shapes meaning, and then work collaboratively to research guidelines for correct usage. Through a series of brief writing assignments, they explore how creative writers employ punctuation as an essential tool in their craft.... 4 Writing Free Verse in the "Voice" of Cesar Chavez Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: Using biographical information about the labor activist Cesar Chavez students read several examples of free verse poems and then write a free verse poem. The procedures outlined in this lesson may be customized to study historical figures or authors that fit a teacher's curriculum.... 5 A High-Interest Novel Helps Struggling Readers Confront Bullying in Schools Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 8–10 Professional Commentary: Problems with bullying and violence plague many schools. This lesson helps students understand these problems in depth.... 6 Lonely as a Cloud: Using Poetry to Understand Similes Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students experience the power of similes by creating two drawings of specific trees. The first is attempted before hearing a poem rich in similes describing the trees.... Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 8–10 Professional Commentary: Created and reviewed by teams of educators, this writing activity describes a lesson in which students use historical information from a museum exhibit to write a fictional story from the point of view of someone who lived in the past. Drawn from the curriculum guide, Collecting Their Thoughts: Using Museums as Resources for Student Writing, which... 8 To Kill a Mockingbird: A Historical Perspective Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading, Social Studies Grades: Grades 9–10 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students gain a sense of the living history that surrounds the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Through studying primary source materials from American Memory and other online resources, students grasp how historical events and human forces have influenced literary texts.... 9 The Poet's Voice: Langston Hughes and You Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: This unit of seven lessons, from EDSITEment, introduces students to a poet's "voice." Students develop a general definition of voice in poetry, and analyze and appreciate the poetic voice of Langston Hughes in particular. Included are writing and discussion activities, in which students either write a poem expressing their own voice (as developed in a journal),... |