Makematic
Weather or not game
"Families need to be ready for whatever weather is coming and to help children prepare for the unexpected. In this activity, children aged 8-11 will design and play a game that helps them explore different types of weather. When children...
Makematic
How Can Details Energize Stories?
When you look and listen carefully, details inform what you see and hear. In this activity, you will write a story using adjectives and adverbs, then create an illustration that shows what happened next.
Makematic
Colorful days
Looking at illustrations before reading the words in picture books helps children see that there are many different ways of telling stories. In this activity, children aged 8-11 will look at the pictures in a book, then retell the story...
Makematic
Let's Build Stories
Whether we start with a personal experience or by looking at art, when we ask questions, we build stories. Your imagination helps bring the characters, setting and plot to life.
KERA
"Baldo" Comic Strip Features Latino Voices
The comic strip Baldo has been published in newspapers across the United States for 20 years. It was the first ever to feature a Latino family as the main characters. Hector Cantu, the author of Baldo was inspired to create the comic...
Book Club for Kids
What Motivated the Author of "When You Reach Me"
Books allow us to transcend the world we live in, but they also help us to connect to the people and places around us. In this audio story, several young students at a school in Washington D.C. talk about the plot, characterization,...
PBS
How Manga Took Over American Bookshelves (Feat. Princess Weekes)
Astro Boy, Dragon Ball, Akira, Sailor Moon, Demon Slayer, Death Note all these interesting, iconic anime have something very much in common they started off as: manga. Manga, by its most simplistic definition, are comics or graphic...
PBS
When the Book is Better than the Movie (Feat. Lindsay Ellis)
It's an age-old debate: The Book vs. The Movie Since the dawn of cinema, film has been sort of the little brother of the more heady, intellectual medium of novels. And many film adaptations of literature leave viewers and critics...
PBS
Who Can You Trust? Unreliable Narrators (Feat. Lindsay Ellis) | PBS Digital Studios
Who is the most powerful character in fiction? Villains may doom the world, heroes may save it, but no one has more control over the plot than the narrator - expositing the who, what, where, when and how directly into the reader’s mind....
Book Club for Kids
The Mystery of "The Westing Game"
Reading a good mystery is like solving a puzzle. Readers have to pay attention to the characters and events in order to solve the mystery. In The Westing Game, the millionaire Samuel Westing has died, and it is time to read his will....
PBS
The Case for Fan Fiction (feat. Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes)
For years writers of fan fiction were shamed, the butt of jokes, and even subject to copyright litigation. However, in the past few years, with the fan fiction writers of today becoming the published mainstream authors of today the past...
Schooling Online
English Essentials - Destroying Drama - Finer Details of Dramatic Analysis (Stage 4, Years/Grades 7-8)
This second lesson uncovers the finer details of theatrical dramas. We’ll explore the world of characterisation, focussing on how playwrights build their characters. We’ll also examine how playwrights use scene descriptions and stage...
The Art Assignment
Make a Cut-Out with Cécile McLorin Salvant
Cécile McLorin Salvant is a visual artist and Grammy Award-winning jazz singer, and she shares with us an art assignment.
Curated Video
Follow my code
Math and art are at the core of technology and digital communication. Computer programmers often have to debug or revise their code if it doesn’t work as planned. In this activity, children aged 12-14 will create sculpted characters and...
Curated Video
Using Transitions to Signal Shifts in Time and Place in Narrative Writing
In this video, the teacher explains the importance of using transitions to indicate shifts in time and place in a story. The students are guided through various exercises to practice identifying and using appropriate transitions.
Makematic
Stories Need Personality, Place, and Plot
In this video, students learn how place and plot can shape a character’s personality.
Makematic
Engaging Fully
In this video, students will rewrite and illustrate a classic story to make it more inclusive.
Makematic
Math and me
When we use art to weave math into stories, we make it fun and memorable. In this activity, children aged 3-7 will use their imagination to create art that adds extra noses, eyes and maybe even animal features to people. Children will...
Makematic
Make stories shine
The art that children create can inspire them to tell amazing stories. By creating their own stories, children begin to understand characters, themes and settings. In this activity, children aged 8-11 will design a new story around an...
TMW Media
A look inside the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum
Situated in Central Texas along the Colorado River is a city known for its eclectic style and diverse culture. As the capital of Texas, Austin is home to a music, art and food centered community that has shaped the city into one of the...
Cerebellum
The Elements Of Drama - Plot And Genre
The Elements of Drama - The wonderful world of drama comes alive in The Elements of Drama, as the young host and hostess take viewers on a journey through the works of such famous playwrights as William Shakespeare. Colorful graphics and...
Cerebellum
The Elements Of Fiction - Plot Structure And Types Of Narrative
The Elements of Fiction - Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson . These are just three of the renowned authors whose work is cited in The Elements of Fiction, which explores: Plot elements, character, conflict, flashback,...
Brainwaves Video Anthology
Richard F. Thomas - Why Bob Dylan Matters
Richard F. Thomas, George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics, was born in London and brought up in New Zealand. He was educated at the University of Auckland (B.A. 1972; M.A. 1973), and at the University of Michigan (Ph.D. 1977). He...
Curated Video
Using a Story Mountain to Revise Your Narrative Writing
In this video, the teacher explains how writers organize the sequence of events in their writing to create a natural and logical flow. They introduce the concept of a story mountain and guide students through the process of planning and...