Scholars summarize sections of a book and compile them to create a book trailer. They are assigned sections of a book to read and summarize before recording as short video segments. The segments are put together in order to create a book...

Looking for a motivating and creative technology lesson? Then this lesson is for you! After viewing a movie trailer, middle-schoolers follow that design to create a video preview of a book's story elements. They also create a storyboard...

Learners develop a list of criteria for a book trailer. In this book trailer lesson, students review book trailers, create storyboards and use Photo Story 3 to create book trailers. Learners create a mini-webquest to review copyrights.

Elvira Woodruff's The Orphan of Ellis Island: A Time Travel Adventure is the core text in a interdisciplinary unit study of immigration at the turn of the century.

Students practice summarizing a story that they have read. They write a persuasive essay encouraging others to read the story they have finished. They are to create a movie trailer or advertisement to promote the book.

Scholars use four different children's books by Dr. Seuss to analyze microeconomic concepts. Group presentations and research help them better understand simple economic concepts through simple stories.

Good books are accessible through a variety of literary lenses. To consider how the same story can be seen in different lights, groups develop a storyboard for a movie teaser that would focus on one of six concepts found in Suzanne...

"Now is the summer of our happiness/Made winter by this sudden, fierce attack!" Luke Skywalker meets Hamlet in a 10-lesson unit based on Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope. Using Star Wars® as source...

Two great men, one time period, and one purpose; it sounds like a movie trailer, but it's not. It's a very good comparative analysis lesson focused on Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Learners will research and read informational...

East Egg, West Egg, the Valley of Ashes, and the green light. Bring Gatsby, the Jazz Age, and the American Dream to your classroom with a resource designed for teachers. Included in the treasury are six great teaching ideas for F. Scott...

Use this comprehensive packet to accompany a study of Missing May by Cynthia Rylant. Starting out with a brief author biography and background information about the novel, this guide includes materials to use throughout the entire novel....

Students read books by the same author and compare what they find.  In this Dr. Seuss instructional activity, students learn about Dr. Seuss' writing style, listen for the rhyme scheme in his stories, and create a KWL chart on Dr....

Students examine how Pip's inner thoughts are portrayed through the medium of film in "Great Expectations." After viewing the film, they answer discussion questions, and compare and contrast the differences between the portrayal of...

Learners examine the differences between the portrayal of characters in books and in motion pictures. Using the novel, The Kite Runner, students discuss the ways in which the characters can be interpreted. Learners create original...

Students take a closer look at Pullman's The Golden Compass.  For this current events lesson, students visit the film's interactive website and participate in a discussion about the nature of religion in the book and the film.

Students study how forces are applied in the creation of art. They design mobiles and pop-up books while identifying which forces of nature act upon them. They look at air currents, gravity, and hand movement.

Students discover what an arthropod is and how they survive in our world.  In this insect instructional activity, students read the book, A House Is A House For Me, and compare a home for a person with the type of habitat an...

What do Robert Downey Jr., Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Fritz Weaver, Roger Moore, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Daffy Duck have in common? Why, it’s elementary, my dear Watson! They all have portrayed Sherlock Holmes. Literary detectives...

At the beginning of the lesson, the class discusses the central idea of a poem. After that, the teacher reads a poem, embedded in the plan, to the class. In groups of two or three, learners create their own poem in response to the...

Oskar Schell's narrative about his expedition to find out more about his father serves as a model for writers who are crafting their own narratives. Class members choose two characters from the novel and collect examples of the methods...

Students choose an individual project or a group project to culminate the reading of Out of the Dust.  In this Out of the Dust lesson, students have a choice of creative projects to complete after they have finished the reading.