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Children's Media and Censorship
High schoolers form opinions about children and television censorship after analyzing literature. They complete a journal writing activity to identify the topic and make a list of inappropriate television shows for children. Next, they...
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CAN WE SWITCH GENDERS OF STORY CHARACTERS?
Analyze characters and stories to identify stereotyping. Learners will examine the concept of character gender to evaluate bias in classroom story books. They are asked to read a story or play and change the gender of the character to...
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Once Upon a Pop-Up Book
Students design and illustrate a pop-up book of their original writing after studying the book, The Jolly Postman: Or Other People's Letter's. They present their book and complete a self-assessment rubric.
Media Literacy
Once Upon a Time
Robert Munsch's The Paperbag Princess and Jon Scieszkafrom's The True Story of the Three Little Pigs launch a discussion of the role of stereotypes in stories and movies.
National Endowment for the Humanities
A Wrinkle in Time: The Board Game
Tackle some big questions about A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle with a board game project. As learners brainstorm for and complete their board games, they consider what helps and hinders Meg on her journey and why she succeeds in...
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Sayings and Phrases
Fourth graders respond to six sayings that are introduced in this activity. They brainstorm, justify, explain, describe, create and relate as they respond.
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Goldilocks and the Three Bears Pantomime
Pupils investigate acting and performing arts by portraying a story in class. In this pantomiming lesson, students read the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and discuss the characters amongst themselves. Pupils portray the 4 main...
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Enchanting Egypt
After reading the Magic Tree House book Mummies in the Morning, learners talk about Ancient Egypt. They identify the plot, characters, setting, etc., explore vocabulary terms, and construct a pyramid. This will motivate your class to...
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Creating a Fantasy World
Students create the basis for a fantasy story. They discuss what makes a story "fantasy" and identify which stories include something that could not happen in the real world. They determine what these fantasy stories have in common.
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Lord of the Rings: The Quest is Achieved
Young scholars analyze what makes a hero in The Lord of the Rings, Book Six. They discuss the characters and the aspects of their behaviors that make them heroes and write essays regarding the climax and heroic gestures of a character....
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Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?
Learners, at the advanced beginner to low intermediate ESL levels, demonstrate comprehension of the play or story, "Little Red Riding Hood." They construct interviews based on knowledge of the characters in the play Little Red Riding Hood.
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May I Take Your Order, Please?
Pupils read a story, boil down that story to 5 to 7 key events, create a sequencing quiz to go with the story and have their classmates take the quiz. They will the strategy of sequencing by reading various stories (that they are not...
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Exploring Animals in Literature
Celebrate Be Kind to Animals Week while teaching empathy and allegory with creature-related texts
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Greed is Good?
From Mr. Merdle to Mr. Madoff? A viewing of the PBS adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “Little Dorrit” launches an examination of greedy characters in literature and a study of greed, unfairness, and economic hardship today. The richly...
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Cinquain
Learners use poetry Cinquain to help review nouns, adjectives, verbs, and synonyms. They follow up by composing their own Cinquain.
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PRINCESSES DON'T HAVE TO BE PASSIVE
Students learn the effects of stereotyping and discrimination.
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Establishing a Point of View in Narratives
Fourth graders investigate the concept and take the opportunity to both identify and to construct point of view in narratives. Additionally, 4th graders practice identifying and sequencing main events.
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Folktale Unit Ideas
Students read a variety of folktales and participate in writing, drawing, measurement, and time activities that relate to the stories. They graph the number of different versions of one folktale that the class finds and reads.
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What Do I Write About?
Second graders write as essay describing the cooperative group drawing they made or describing the process to draw a group picture.
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Apple Exploration!
Students explore a variety of classroom stations about apples and Johnny Appleseed.
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What About Films?
High schoolers watch and analyze a film of an Appalachian folktale. They define trickster and anti-hero, view and discuss the film, complete a handout, compose an original film review, and debate each character's behavior.
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Dramatizing Fables
Young scholars familiarize themselves with fables by listening to several of them. They define fables. They identify the moral of a specific fable. They identify characters, plot and sequence of events. They create a mask of a character...
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Bits and Pieces!
Students discuss story elements including characters, setting, problem and solution. They listen to the story, Winter Fun, and identify the story elements. Then they draw pictures and write one sentence for each story element.
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Once Upon a Pop-Up Book
Third graders compile their writings into pop-up books after reading "The Jolly Postman: Or Other People's Letters." The book contains letters, invitations, essays, and narratives they have written previously. The project also includes...