Curated OER
Rock & Roll through Literary Terms: An Upbeat Lyrical Adventure
Students participate in a variety of activities surrounding Rock & Roll music, lyrics, drama and visual art and how they all help demonstrate examples of literary terms. They use Rock & Roll as an effective aid to stimulate their...
Curriculum Corner
8th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists
How close are your eighth graders to mastering the ELA Common Core standards? Keep an eye on progress with these charts, which include every eighth grade identifier and full standard text. As you move through the year and teach, reteach,...
Curated OER
Tales of Edgar Allen Poe
Analyze the writing of Edgar Allen Poe by reading and then writing in a similar style. Budding authors learn about the life of Poe and read one or more of his famous works online. Partner groups create an original piece of writing using...
Curated OER
Silent Stories
Students create a pictorial narrative based upon John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and the Japanese techniques of "lacquer jar" stories in this three-day Language Arts/Art lesson.
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Jazz Talk
Students analyze the origins of jazz music by examining work songs, spirituals, blues, and gospel songs as well as works of poetry from African American artists. They create their own poems from either the narrative, dramatic, or lyric...
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Humans and the Natural World Poetically
Students read poetry for gist and find images to create a visual narrative. In this poetry instructional activity, students read Green Lane and Flies and Nettles to examine the relationship between humanity and the nature. Students...
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Using Poetic Images to Initiate the Exploration of Resistance During the Holocaust
Students explore the role of resistance during the Holocaust. Viewing images, they complete a set of notes on the Holocaust and discuss the feelings they get from looking at the photographs. They identify the parts of speech used in...
K12 Reader
Metaphor and Simile: About You
Class members will be as confident as prize-winning thoroughbreds after completing a worksheet on figurative language. Young writers jot down metaphors and similes for three categories: they way they look, they way they feel, and the way...
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Language Arts: Creative Writing Devices
Eighth graders review sound and rhythm devices and apply them to their own writing exercises. Next, they interpret the poem, "Where I'm From," as an example of a personal narrative. Using their understanding of poetic devices, they...
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American Civil Rights Movement, Photo Essay
Students view photographs from the Civil Rights Movement and write an essay from the point of view of someone in the photograph. They artistically represent various aspects of the Movement.
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Comparison Contrast Essay
Learners compare and contrast the experience of the migrant worker as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath with the experiences of migrant children as depicted in the narratives and poems provided.
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Boundaries That Inspire: The Sestina
Students study the poetic term "enjambment". They use one word as more than one part of speech and let words (instead of ideas) inspire lines and non-sequential, dreamlike, compulsive narrative.
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Deciphering Community
Young scholars explore the concept of a community. They identify and group various kinds of communities. Students create a concept map exemplifying their membership in different communities. They write a narrative describing their...
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Double Exposed Photographs
Students create double-exposed photographs, poetry, and multimedia presentations. In this artwork lesson plan, students explore cameras, poems, and other art forms to understand line, light, and other attributes that contribute to artwork.
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Who Were the Dissidents?
Young scholars discover how Japanese dissidents spoke out against the injustice practiced in Imperial Japan. In this Japanese history lesson plan, students listen to a lecture about the silent dissidents in the nation prior to World War...
Curated OER
Exploring the Life of a Slave
Eleventh graders explore importance of abolitionists who worked to advance freedoms of black Americans prior to/during Reconstruction era, read and identify key concepts in Frederick Douglass's narrative, recognize how Douglass's slave...
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Creating a Collage
Fifth graders identify and describe the characteristics of collages. They familiarize themselves with the history of collage making. They select pictures from magazines that relate to their chosen word of the week. They design a collage.
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All About Me
Students complete various biographical and autobiographical writing activities. They write an autobiographical essay, biopoem, biographical essay, and design and decorate a bag presenting character traits.
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Forms Of Knowledge
Students put writing pieces into categories to show different organizational features in writing. In this writing lesson plan, students are shown examples of speeches, poems, editorials, cartoons, parodies, historical fiction, and more.
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Getting to Know You
Third graders explore different types of poetry and illustrate their own experiences through creating their own poem. For this getting to know you lesson, 3rd graders create and recite their poems with a self-portrait.
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All About Me
Students practice biographical and autobiographical forms of writing: autobiography, biopoem, character traits, classmate biography.
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The Figure of Paul Revere. Romanticizing Colonial American History
Students compare paintings to make conclusions about American History in the Revolutionary War time period. Students share opinions concerning visual art. Other artwork can be used to entice inquiry as needed.
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Using Reader's Theater in the Classroom
Here are some suggestions for using Reader's Theater in the classroom.
Curated OER
Jazz in America
Learners participate in a class discussion about jazz music, compare improvisation with regular conversion, listen to various jazz musicians and compare and contrast their individual sounds.