1 Web Writer's Block: Investigating Internet Censorship Around the World Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Best Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: This interdisciplinary lesson promotes critical thinking through thoughtful research and discussions about the legitimacy of banning access to certain types of information on the Internet. Working in cooperative groups, students review websites banned in various countries, and investigate the reasons why particular countries would want to block information.... Career Fields: Arts & Communication, Business & Administrative Services, Government & Public Administration, Information Technology, Law & Public Safety Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First 2 Novel News: Broadcast Coverage of Character, Conflict, Resolution, and Setting Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Best Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students prepare original news programs based on the events from a novel. After reading a novel, independently or as a class, students explore the literary elements of character, conflict, resolution, and setting.... Projects: Writing 6-12 3 The All-Purpose Multimedia Poetry Beast Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Promising Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 11–Postsecondary Professional Commentary: This resource is an instructional unit in which students record poetry readings to express and demonstrate their understanding of the poet's purpose. This instructional unit, maintained by the New Zealand Ministry of Education, provides opportunties for students to publish and share a portfolio of their poetic writings.... Career Fields: General Career Skills Projects: COR, Writing 6-12, Standards First 4 Exploring Satire with Shrek Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Best Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–10 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students use the familiar characteristics of fairy tales, the movie Shrek, which satirizes fairy tale traditions, as an introduction to the satirical techniques of exaggeration, incongruity, reversal, and parody. Students brainstorm fairy tale characteristics and identify the satirical techniques used to present them in the movie.... Projects: Writing 6-12 5 All in a Day's Work: Modernizing Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Promising Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: 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.... Career Fields: Arts & Communication, Human Services, Information Technology, General Career Skills Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Promising Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: In this unit, students use literature and art to investigate the idea of "monsters." They begin by defining the idea of monster and reading and comparing two works, Beowulf and Grendel by John Gardner. As a final project, students create an artistic representation of their interpretation of a monster and write a story detailing its... Career Fields: Health Science Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First 7 Become a Character: Adjectives, Character Traits, and Perspective Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Promising Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: In this activity, students "become" one of the major characters in a literary work and describe themselves and other characters, using lists of accurate, powerful adjectives. In class discussion, students support their lists with details from the novel.... Career Fields: Arts & Communication, Business & Administrative Services, Education & Training, Hospitality & Tourism, Law & Public Safety, Marketing, General Career Skills Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First 8 Discovering a Passion for Poetry with Langston Hughes Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Promising Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: After analyzing examples of contemporary youth poetry as well as the poetry of Langston Hughes, students use the Internet to conduct research on how events in the world shaped Hughes' work. They cite specific examples, showing the link between their interpretations of the poem to the sociohistorical context in which the work was written.... Career Fields: Arts & Communication, Education & Training, Human Services, General Career Skills Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First 9 Graffiti Wall: Discussing and Responding to Literature Using Graphics Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Promising Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: This literature-based project centers around a novel study. After reading a novel voted on and selected by the class, students work individually and in groups, to create visual and written interpretations.... Career Fields: Arts & Communication, Information Technology, Marketing, General Career Skills Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First 10 Exploring Literature through Letter Writing Groups Resource Type: Instructional Resource -- Promising Practice Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 9–12 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students discuss literature through a series of letter exchanges. Though not a new idea, this lesson provides an alternative to traditional literature discussion groups.... Career Fields: General Career Skills Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First |