Students view different musical instruments from around Latino world, predict what sounds instruments will make based on their appearance, listen to and evaluate music from different Latino genres orally or in writing, and make...

Twelfth graders examine the characteristics of transcendentalism. In this transcendentalism lesson, 12th graders determine what this type of writing entails before reading a passage from, Ray Bradbury's, Dandelion Wine. They cite three...

Young scholars read The Kapok Tree and write about the story.  In this rainforest story, students write a book in the genre of The Kapok Tree. Young scholars research their animals on the Internet and find facts about the importance...

Shake it up! Shake your tablet to bring up a unique writing prompt for journaling or blogging with your class. Shake again and a new one appears. Prompts can come from different categories (sketches, scenes, texts, words, news) to help...

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.

Contrary to popular belief, the monster's name in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is not Frankenstein. A teacher's guide for the novel helps readers make sense of key details in the text, define vocabulary words, and discuss prominent...

What does is take to be a role model? Through grand conversation, and the use of books and a graphic organizer, scholars find out and apply the requirements to identify a role model within their family. They then journey through the...

Who am I? Pupils work to answer this question through a unit that explores personal narratives and identity. Exit tickets for activities that examine different poems, short stories, and autobiographical writing serve as prewriting for...

Sharpen those pencils; it's time to write! Scholars begin writing the first body paragraph of their literary analysis essays. Additionally, pupils use graphic organizers to analyze a character's point of view from Laurence Yep's...

After being introduced to non-fiction texts, second graders meet a different type of non-fiction text that can help them locate factual information. They discuss and examine all of the features found in typical encyclopedias such...

Fourth graders read the novel, The Eric Canal, identifying the characters and setting. They respond to daily reading by writing in journals and complete a short answer test upon completion of the novel.

Students orally tell different types of stories using the assistance of props. For more advanced students, stories may be told according to a specific genre, or the story may have to include a given condition, setting, situation or theme.

Students identify and explain different types of data collection and graphs. In this graphs and data collection instructional activity, students record their observations of a variety of data collection tools and graphs displayed in the...

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 explore different types of student literature; they then write their own fiction pieces, in either fantasy/adventure or memoir/realism style.

Students discover a connection between the genres of popular music and musical theater. They find and discuss musicals written in many different musical styles.

Fourth graders listen to the book, THE GIVING TREE and discuss what genre category they believe the story fits into and why. They read of of the myths on the website on the computers and then come back together as a group and discuss...

Students begin the lesson by responding in their journals regarding questions about their favorite fairy tales. They listen to a folk tale and answer questions based on the folk tale genre and then brainstorm aphorisms that convey moral...

Young scholars identify the key characteristics that comprise American literary naturalism in Jack London's "To Build a Fire" and Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat." In this naturalism analysis lesson, students identify characteristics of...

Students examine the history of heavy metal music. They discover how to classify a piece of music as heavy metal. They also discuss the importance of understanding the background of a type of music.

Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience. They apply knowledge of language structure,...

Students identify various instruments and styles of music from South India-Kerala. In this music lesson, students discover main languages of South India and the Kathakali dance drama. Students discuss the types of singers and dancers in...

Students examine the structure of the newspaper. In this newspaper lesson, students look at the different types of articles about giving, sharing, and acts for the common good. They realize the types of voice that are used in the...

Students explore the genre of poetry through centers. They listen to the sound of poems being read aloud, visualize individual poems and observe and apply line breaks in poetry.