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Vivid Verbs
Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...
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Literature Study Guide: To Kill a Mockingbird
Teaching tools designed to support student-centered literature study. Geared toward homeschoolers reading Harper Lee's book To Kill a Mockingbird, I would use these in my classroom. The materials are applicable to any text: graphic...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Comparing Themes
The tale of "Lon Po Po" is a Chinese story, very similar to the European tale of "Little Red Riding Hood." Learners make cross cultural comparisons between the two tales, focusing on themes common to both. They review story elements such...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Creating Narrative
Plot, setting, characters, and conflict are common to both drama and narrative stories. Kids create narrated tableaus that show their understanding of the plot, setting, and conflict of a story they've recently read. The lesson...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Story Design
Stories contain very specific elements; plot, characters, and key events. Learners use pantomime to retell a key event from the beginning, middle, and end of a story. They discuss setting and character as each group discusses and then...
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Great Expectations: Group Writing
Examine the differences between totalitarianism and democracy in this writing lesson. Using the same format and theme from Great Expectations, young writers work in pairs to compose their own short stories. They follow guidelines for the...
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I Am An Author
Analyze and interpret a literary work your class has read during the course. After reading a variety of literary works, middle schoolers alter the ending of a selection by creating an alternate ending. They generate five comprehension...
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That's Moor Like It!
How do modern adaptations of Shakespearean plays relate to their original source material? Middle and high schoolers focus on Shakespeare's play Othello and its screen adaptation "O" to explore how modern film adaptations of Shakespeare...
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Louisiana's Tragic Hero - "Evangeline"
"Ye who believe...List to a Tale of Love in Acadie." Longfellow's epic poem, "Evangeline," launches a study of tragic heroines, epic poetry, the expulsion of the Acadians from Canada, and their subsequent migration to Louisiana. The...
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Flying Freudian Fun: A Look At Ethical Decision Making
There are not many more apt examples of ethics gone awry than William Golding's Lord of the Flies.. Ninth graders focus the ethics of decision making with the examples provided in the plot. They focus on the...
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Shared Reading Activities
Shared reading is a way to bond together as a family and learn key literature concepts. Great for parents or teachers who want to bring the shared reading experience into the home or classroom. The article offers several tips on what you...
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The Joy Luck Club: Bloom's Taxonomy: Questions
Really challenge your class when they're reading Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. Provide them with this list of six thought-provoking questions to encourage a deeper analysis. The questions are based off of Bloom's Taxonomy, and a list of...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Illustrating Text
Ideas like this are highly effective for helping build better reading comprehension. The class listens to an excerpt from a grade-appropriate text, and they discuss what clues or words helped them visualize the scene. They then read a...
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Story Blender
Fifth graders write a story with many paragraphs that include a plot, setting, and ending. For this writing lesson plan, 5th graders create stories as a class.
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The Librarian from Conneaut School
Second graders identify the elements of the story "The Librarian from the Black Lagoon." They listen to the story and list the story elements of character, settling, problem, and solution. They then use KidPix to create individual...
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Narrative Strategies
Sixth graders explore strategies authors use to make characters and setting seem real to readers. They develop characters and describe setting in original narratives. Students read myths and determine common themes found in myths from...
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Modern day Folktales: Recasting Folktales in the 21st Century
Students write their own modern day folktale and compare it with "Cathal O'Cruachan and the Cowherd." In addition, they illustrate a character from the original Irish folktale and how the same character would appear today. Students read...
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Evaluating Media Materials
Students demonstrate the ability to select and evaluate media materials. They demonstrate comprehension when listening and reading for literary experience, to be informed, and to perform a task. Students evaluate a fiction book based on...
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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Fourth graders read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow aloud, make predictions, compare characters, discuss plot and setting, and rewrite the ending to the story.
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Using Inspiration Software to Explore Characters In Stories
Pupils identify characters, their qualities, and examples of their qualities and use Inspiration to organize them in a clear and understandable format. After a lecture/demo, students use the program on the next story by themselves.
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Writing Own Tale
Third graders read The First Strawberries and complete a character chart. In this writing a tale lesson, 3rd graders discuss viewpoints and identify character traits. Students complete character charts and write their own tale about...
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Comparing Characters Across Two Short Stories
Ninth graders listen to a read aloud of two short stories focusing on literary devices. The write about the settings and realism of the stories, and decide each main character handles the conflict he faces with nature.
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Character's Qualities
Sixth graders analyze the a character's qualities and the effects of these qualities on the plot and the resolution of the conflict in the story "The Pigman and Me." They develop a list of the qualities, discuss if these qualities were...
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Harriet The Spy
Fourth graders investigate the style of diary writing as its own genre of literature. They read Harriet The Spy in order to have a text for this literature study. Students use the skill of prediction to preview the story, and then...