Curated OER
Lesson Plan: Wide Open Spaces
What's the difference between city space and wide open space? Young analysts explore each space through writing, critical thinking, and discussion. They use what they learn to create collages that exemplify both worlds. Great discussion...
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A Creative Presentation
Bring writing to life with this lesson in which elementary and middle schoolers create a display of the imagery they identify in a series of Gary Paulsen books. They read the suggested materials, identify imagery and descriptive...
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Imagining China through Words
When Europeans first came back with tales of China, they provided vivid written accounts and minimal visual imput. This resulted in art rendered mostly from descriptive language. Learners explore this phenomena by listening to...
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Let's Go Exploring!
Use a Courbet painting of a cave or tunnel opening to reinforce the importance of descriptive writing. Writers of all ages use sensory details to describe what the scene depicts as they pretend to be in the painting. Then they imagine...
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Waking Dreams: A Teacher's Guide
A teacher's guide for a seminar held at the Cincinnati Art Museum includes a full description of several Pre-Raphaelite art pieces, artists, and connecting literary works. Excerpts from authors and poets can help you make the connection...
Cloud Front
Socratic Seminar for: A Christmas Carol
Socratic seminars are a great way to encourage the development of critical thinking, speaking, and listening skills. And Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a perfect text for such a seminar. Use the questions in the packet to...
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Magical Creatures Land
The opening of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit provides a model of how to use rich details to create a setting. After reading the description of Bilbo Baggins’ abode, young writers create their own magical home for a fantasy creature. The...
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My Name Is Osama
Students read a short story about a young Iraqi boy, which opens up classroom discussion about the difficulties some immigrant students face, especially in the days after September 11.
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Adjective Monster
Explore descriptive writing and visual art. Listen to the story Go Away Big, Green Monster by Ed Emberley and generate a list of adjectives used in the book. Name familiar shapes and create a shapes list. Choose an adjective and shape to...
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Variations of Pain
Students listen to the song :King of Pain" by the Police. They identify different instrumentation and different rhythmic accompaniments to the opening vocal phrase and explore the text in-depth, discussing the various poetic images of...
Learning Station
Writing Playscripts
In this writing worksheet, students read a short description of a play script. Then, students read a fable and write a play script of the fable.
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An Exciting New Year
Students look back on last year, so that they are able to plan ahead for a new year. In this early childhood language arts lesson, students use verbal and cognitive skills to discuss what they did the previous year and what their...
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Electric Light Art
Learners write a poem about a single work of art by Flavin. In this descriptive response lesson, students express their feelings about the work and organize words into phrases. Learners arrange word phrases on paper to form...
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The Bullying of Malvolio
Students explore Malvolio's behavior and treatment in Twelfth Night. For this literature lesson, students examine the characteristics of a bully. They then work in groups and analyze scenes to determine whether Malvolio fits...
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Composition in Journals
Carlos Fuentes’s The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait and Jaspre Bark’s Journal of Inventions: Leondardo da Vince serve as models for an assignment that asks class members to create a personal journal they will use...
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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Exploring the Expository Scenes in Macbeth
Learners examine the function of exposition in play structure. They will be able to develop multiple interpretations and visual and aural production choices for Shakespearean scenes and choose those that are most interesting.
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On the Scene: Analyzing Scenes in Film and Literature
Students examine how a scene in a movie or in literature is constructed. In this film and literature activity students answer questions based on film clips then create storyboards depicting a scene from their life.
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Animation Pre-Production
Does your class love reading cartoons? Use their talents and interests to examine the process of writing a story they wish to tell through a cartoon. They develop the beginning, middle, and end of a story based on their original...
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Photography: Beyond the Snapshot
Students explore news photography skills. In this photojournalism lesson, students examine photographs from newspapers and magazines and discuss the attributes of quality photographs. Students complete a webquest at the Kodak website and...
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The Diary of Anne Frank-Clash of the Clans
Middle schoolers read selected passages from The Diary of Anne Frank. They, in groups, discuss the television / movie characters and create character webs involving these characters and those in the Anne Frank book.
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High Anxiety
The Learning Network section of the New York Times produces high-quality teaching materials. This issue gets middle or high schoolers reading an article about how people use art to express their response to high-stress events. They work...
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Haiku
Fourth graders create a haiku. They use a digial camera and file management techniques to save work. They also use a photo editor to manipulate the pictures. Finally, they create a PowerPoint presentation of their Haiku.
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Judging a Book by Its Cover
Students explore the relationship between the form of books and the content inside. In this book exploration instructional activity, students use a piece of their creative writing as inspiration; they author a written book and design a...