1 Fooling With Words: Teaching Tools for Poetry Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 11–12 Professional Commentary: Fooling With Words is an informative web site with a focus on contemporary American poets. Many of these poets are frequently published in high school anthologies.... 2 A Significant Influence: Describing an Important Teacher in Your Life Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 8–10 Professional Commentary: All of us have encountered someone who has made a profound difference in our lives—someone who changed our lives, made us think more deeply, set our feet on the right path. Perhaps it was a teacher we met in a classroom, but it could just have easily been a coach, a youth group leader, a family... 3 Truth Be Told: Writing Memoirs Based on a Shared Event Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students write a short memoir about a recent, significant shared event that affected their school or community. They then compare their recollections and present evidence that supports their version of the events.... 4 Exploring Language and Identity : Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue and Beyond Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 11–12 Professional Commentary: In the essay “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan explains that she “began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with.” How these “different Englishes” or even a language other than English contribute to identity is a crucial issue for adolescents. The ways that the individual negotiates those “different Englishes” within a so-called standard dialect... 5 Teaching The Song of the Lark Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 10–12 Professional Commentary: This resource provides an online teacher's guide for use with Willa Cather's novel The Song of the Lark and the film adaptation of the same name, created by Masterpiece Theater. Teaching The Song of the Lark presents an integrated study that uses visual media to extend students' understanding of the novel.... 6 Painting Portraits with Words: A Language Arts Lesson Based on an Exhibition on William Butler Yeats Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 11–12 Professional Commentary: This resource uses a feature article from the New York Times to examine how an exhibition of William Butler Yeats' writings represents a portrait or biography of the author's life. Designated a promising practice, this lesson allows students to analyze various poems by Yeats using varied written forms.... 7 Once Upon a Time: Writing Stories about Reading Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 10–12 Professional Commentary: This resource uses a feature article from the New York Times to stimulate a discussion about one's life as a reader. This lesson encourages students to take an inventory of their own histories as readers.... 8 Making Connections to Myth and Folktale : The Many Ways to Rainy Mountain Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: In The Way to Rainy Mountain, N. Scott Momaday links the survival of his people to their ability to remember, preserve, and pass on stories.... 9 Reader Response in Hypertext: Making Personal Connections to Literature Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 11–12 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students choose four quotations to inspire their personal responses to a novel that they have read. Students write a narrative of place, complete a character sketch, create an extended metaphor poem and write a persuasive essay.... 10 All in a Day's Work: Modernizing Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: This lesson plan uses a passage from Herman Melville's 1856 tale, "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street," to encourage literary response and creative writing. Students respond in writing to the short story by creating their own modern versions of the tale.... |