Ready to integrate technology into your ELL instruction? Check out this reading lesson that has language learners using the Internet and apps, joining online book clubs, and creating blogs. A fine model of what can be done.

Let's compare and contrast! Scholars use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the experience of reading a poem and listening to its audio version. Next, they complete graphic organizers, comparing two different genres: a poem and a...

One can never be too prepared. Pupils prepare for their upcoming mid-unit assessment by writing their group norms for small group discussions. Additionally, scholars read and listen to a poem, comparing the two experiences using a Venn...

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...

An in-class reading of Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece Meets the Big O introduces class members to the journey motif that forms the basis of The Hobbit.

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...

Gear up for Halloween by studying the horror genre with your class and analyzing films and texts to uncover the genre's traditional conventions.

"X" is for exaggeration, and "F" is for fact. To encourage close reading and to improve literary analysis skills, class members annotate fables and tall tales, like Paul Bunyan, with symbols that identify key features of this genre.

Young scholars are asked to reflect on how personal experiences might influence points of view and perspectives. They read poems and biographies of the poets and then match the poem to the poet. To justify their matches, learners...

A language arts instructional activity helps young writers identify elements that make up historical fiction. First, it guides them through elements of fictional pieces with vocabulary cards. Then, pupils work collaboratively to...

Can authors speak to each other across works, genres, and centuries? Study the conversation between Christopher Marlowe in his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and the responses by Sir Walter Raleigh and William Carlos Williams...

There is a reason why an Oscar is given each year for the Best Adaptation Screenplay. Adaptations are the focus of an exercise that asks class members to compare a work of literature with a least one adaptation of the work into a...

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...

Readers create a literary scrapbook for one of the characters in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and fill it with mementoes, journal entries, letters, etc. A great way to get kids to think about characterization.

Let's have a look at something different. Scholars take a look at the text Investigating the Scientific Method with Max Axiom Super Scientist and discuss how the structure, graphics, and images appear different than previous works...

As a culminating assignment for a unit study of heroes that uses The Hobbit as the core text, class members engage in a multi-genre writing project.

In response to reading Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, individuals are asked to complete a multi-genre writing assignment, crafting eight different pieces including a research paper.

Here’s a cross-curricular program music activity that uses Peer Gynt to engage class members. Groups take one section of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” choreograph their section of the tune to represent the story as they imagine it,...

Latin American culture is deeply embedded in American culture as a whole. From the Latin rock scene in San Francisco to the hip-hop world of New York, Latin American artists have influenced every genre of modern music. Learn about the...

Expand your pupils' understanding of the short story genre with a study of John Updike and his story "A&P." This instructional activity, the fourth in a series of fourteen, invites learners to examine literary terms and read and...

The Hunger Games. Maximum Ride. Why is so much of young adult literature so dark? What is the appeal of dystopian literature to young readers? The six activities in this resource ask kids to reflect on some of the reasons this genre has...

Designed as the final project concluding a study of Mississippi Trial, 1955, readers select a character from Crowe's novel and craft a portfolio of six entries that reveal not only aspects of the character, but similarities between...

Language learners write down the words to a song as they listen to it. They then work in groups to write a love poem using the words and phrases they wrote from the song. As a culminating activity, scholars read their poems to the class.

Put the tips and tricks in this guide into practice in order to encourage your pupils to blossom into poets. A wonderful reference material for teachers, this packet includes definitions of poetic terms and forms as well as step-by-step...