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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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Box O' Love
Students create a Valentines Day poem using an empty cereal box as their canvas. In this poetry instructional activity, students create their poems using rhyming words and create sentences.
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Theology…the Use of Silence in the Classroom
Immerse your class in the Middle Ages with a thorough history lesson. After viewing examples of illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, they discuss how these were the mode of keeping and storing information...
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Stain My Days Blue
Students read several poems related to the life and culture of the Appalachia region. They are introduced to the poetic forms of simile, alliteration and onomatopoeia and respond to the poems through journal entries and poetry of their own.
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Personalized Postcards
Students create and send postcards to friends and family members. Using actual photographs, they write a rough draft and final draft of a paragraph and print it out to glue onto a postcard template to mail to their friend or family member.
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Am I Really Free?
Fourth graders write about slavery and freedom. In this freed slaves lesson, 4th graders read historical information about free blacks during slavery and explore books, objects and slave narratives to learn more. Students...
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Creative Writing Inspired by Paintings
Third graders view a PowerPoint presentation of the images by Maxfield Parrish. They wirte a short story based on one image and create drawings of an imagined character.
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Comparison Contrast Essay
Students 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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Deciphering Community
Students 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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Animal and People Habitats
Students examine how animals create a unique space in which they can live. Students read a poem about animals' habitats discuss the habitats. They draw a space of their own and write a poem that describes their habitat.
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Language Arts: Lewin Project
Fourth graders read and respond to the poem, "When I Am Angry." They complete surveys by analyzing the most common feeling and draw a bar graph of their behavior, using different colors to identify the duration of various feelings. ...
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Reader's Theater
Young scholars act out and interpret the story for their peers. They study the simplest form of an organized reading to a more elaborate activity involving props, costumes, or a reinterpretation of the narrative into another art form.
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Ugly? Says Who?
Students explore biology by writing animal poetry in class. For this animal characteristics lesson, students research the Internet for facts about an "ugly" animal such as a bug or small critter. Students complete worksheets about animal...
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We're Environmentally Friendly
Fourth graders examine written works dealing with environmental issues and resolutions during a 5 week unit. They create posters, poems, and rap songs demonstrating authorship and knowledge of the environment.
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Introducing Tolkien and His Words
Students identify and describe the types of narratives that made Tolkien the writer he was. In groups, they examine different myths and folktale motifs. They discuss what Tolkien meant by "faerie" and "eucatastrophe." As a class, they...
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Re-Presenting Race in the Digital Age: "Who Can Pass"
Eleventh graders examine the relationship between race and class in historical and societal settings. They read and discuss the poem, "Passing," by Langston Hughes, analyze photographs by Yinka Shonibare, answer discussion questions,...
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About Life: The Photographs of Dorthea Lange - Images of Children in Dorothea Lange's Photographs
Students examine how visual artists tell stories with their work. In this visual art instructional activity, students study two of Dorothea Lange's photographs to find elements of art and narrative content, use descriptive language when...
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Three Coffles Lesson Plan
Middle schoolers read about the slave trade in primary source documents. They discuss differences and commonalities in experiences. They write prose or poetry from the point of view of one of the figures from the reading and create a...
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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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Let's Make Stew!
Students investigate how to create a vegetable garden and complete related activities. In this vegetable garden lesson plan, students receive agriculture notebooks to complete vocabulary for the gardening lesson plan. Students read...
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Who Were the Dissidents?
Learners 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 II and...
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Senior Scrapbook Assignment
Twelfth graders write creatively and reflectively on 20 different events or memories that shaped their senior year. They organize memorabilia into a scrapbook with 20 entries and create a cover that represents their senior year. They...
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Fourth graders research and write an author report on Roald Dahl, including books written by him, birthplace, family life, and other information on his writing. Students read aloud chapters in the book. Students create a newspaper...
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Greeting Card to A Character
Students create a greeting card from one character to another after finishing a novel. Individually, they use their imagination to write the paragraph using the text to support their ideas. They share their greeting card with the class...