Jazz, Blue Grass, Hip Hop, Swing. Gospel, R&B, Ragtime, Disco. So many music genres born in the USA. After reading an article about the fate of New Orlean's Jazz after Hurricane Katrina, class members investigate the life cycles of...

Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

One of the big challenges of assigning independent reading is helping class members find a book to read. Another is encouraging readers to read a variety of genres. Never fear, help is here in the form of a quest that asks individuals to...

Third through fifth graders discover the importance of reading and plan a service project to provide books to children. First, they read the book The Important Book and then they brainstorm about the importance of reading. Afterward,...

How does a writer's choice of genre, style, and format impact the effectiveness of an argument about a social issue? After reading a poem and an essay about Barbie dolls, class members choose a social issue important to them, select a...

Third graders learn to identify different types of literature genres. In this genre lesson, 3rd graders complete pre and post- assessment, conduct a genre research activity, and complete the associated worksheets.

Third graders complete book reports. They are given the following jobs; chef, who organizes them into genres; maître d', who calls students to share the menu; and waiters/waitresses, who take orders for books from customers, pass out...

While reading A River Runs Through It, have your high schoolers work on their final project, a multi-genre research paper. There are 10 clear steps for completion but not much additional help. For early high schoolers (or...

Add some writing to your class's reading of Cold Sassy Tree! With this plan, readers assume the role of journalist and create a segment of a paper with their peers. Suggested segments are included, and a worksheet dividing the text into...

Students discuss books they are reading during the semester through e-mail with other students. They complete a reading interest survey, e-mail their partner weekly, and read and suggest six novels by the end of the semester.

Sixth graders select a prose, poetry, or nonfiction excerpt from a book of their choice and share it by reading aloud to their classmates, who identify the genre and respond to related questions in their journals.

Students examine the literary elements of fairy tales. After reading the fairy tale "Rapunzel" and discussing the elements of fairy tales that occur as they read, they use a story web to help plan and create an original fairy tale. ...

Students create tables in a word processing program which helps them organize their text clues when reading a mystery story. They develop reading comprehension strategies while using a computer based graphic organizer in order to solve...

Learners examine the procedures that writers utilize to obtain and develop ideas for writing. Journal writing is fostered as a primary step in the writing process. Learners are encouraged to pay careful attention to using complete...

Need an extra challenge for your best readers? Check out a unit that uses Hannah Webster Foster’s epistolary novel, The Coquette, published in 1797, as the anchor text. The resource is packed with project ideas; each with its...

Jack the Ripper terrorized London in the late 1800s. An educator's guide for the novel The Name of the Star places the historical figure in a modern context. Readers complete a pre-reading activity before answering a series of discussion...

Unsuspecting George McFlys are presented into the craft workings of the science fiction genre of literature. Speculations are developed through teacher-led dialogs about how science fiction impacts science, technology, and comments on...

Second graders investigate information in non-fiction texts. They review the features of a non-fiction text and read the book Nature's Food Chains: What Polar Animals Eat. Pupils discuss the text features and write down one fact they...

Students examine fractured fairy tales before responding by writing in many different genres including a persuasive essay, a personal narrative, a letter, an advertisement, and a resume'. They create a pop-up book with their written...

Have your class examine the characteristics of various writing genres using the Writing with Writers online project. Detailed instructions for how to introduce, discuss, and develop a piece of writing for each genre are included. Class...

Turn your 6th graders into detectives while growing their love of reading. Using critical thinking skills, they will be able to describe the five basic elements of detective fiction, read detective novels, make predictions, use the...

Students, after reading and analyzing Rebecca Brown's "Forgiveness" and Christine Delea's "CoCo Chanel in the Stairwell," explore and focus on the author's tone and genre analysis. They interpret different rhetorical situations as they...

Young scholars are introduced to nonfiction text. In this five esson unti, students explore nonfiction as a genre. They identify the components and text structure of text structure of nonfiction text. Young scholars read a nonfiction...

Tenth graders read and study, in-depth, a specific classical tragedy, in this case, Oedipus. They explore strategies from making meaning out of or interpreting texts, as well as strategies for determining how authors create meaning in...