Curated OER
Environmental Rhyme and Reason
Learners employ poetry as a medium to relay information and express views about significant environmental issues that exist today and to assess their effects on The State of the Planet as we enter the next millennium.
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Isn't It Romantic?
Sixth graders investigate the ideas, literature, music, and art of the Romantic Movement. They apply romantic ideals to their original writing and art, analyze poetry, discuss key vocabulary, and analyze artwork from this era.
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Sea-ing More Clearly
Learners explore historical importance of fish as food source, examine works of Robert Harris, create their own fish, and compose accompanying poetry. Students then explore dramatic tradition of Chorus inspired by Greek theatre,...
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Clay Story Adventure
Young scholars build three-dimensional rough draft for a story by creating objects, people, places, animals, etc., with clay, and write story in a journal, poem, or other written form.
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Work, Lyddie! Work!
Students research links concerning early factory labor, child labor in today's world, and diseases on young laborers. They work on a loom, analyze a mill bell schedule, read a mill girl's diary, and write a poem or song exhibiting empathy.
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Holocaust
The Holocaust is the focus of this interactive poetry strategy. The classroom will be set-up to remind students of the Secret Annex, with a table, lamp, and various other props. Each participant will receive 3 Saltine crackers and...
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The Short Story: A Slice of Life
Students are introduced to the characteristics of the short story. Individually, they use their own personal experiences to write a poem about their families to get them used to writing. Next, they practice reading various short...
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Discovering Peace
Students explore vocabulary related to peace. In this peace lesson, students define the word "peace" and create a poem about peace. Students create a "peace quilt" as a follow-up activity.
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Haiku
Students work collaboratively to create a class Haiku and illustrate the poem individually in this elementary school lesson. The lesson includes five possible enrichment activities.
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My Antonia: Guided Imagery
Willa Cather's novel My Antonia is full of vivid imagery. Encourage your pupils to visualize and translate images from the text into original writing with this guided imagery activity. Learners listen to an excerpt, take a moment to...
Channel Islands Film
The Legendary King of San Miguel: Lesson Plan 3 - Grades 9-12
The documentary, The Legendary King of San Miguel Island, introduces the fascinating tale of Herb Lester, his family, and their life on San Miguel Island. Viewers have an opportunity to expand their study of the island and of...
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Parrot in the Oven: Instructional Routine
After reading "The Bullet," a particularly intense chapter in Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members listen to the Spanish and the English versions of "Dimelo" by Enrique Iglesias. They then discuss how the...
Captain Planet Foundation
Sense of Place
Explore the five senses with a kindergarten lesson on gardening. After taking a walk through the class garden, kids note what they see, hear, feel, taste, and smell, and then decide what is living in the garden versus what is not living....
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Imagine This
Students practice visualizing as they read to aid comprehension. They then read a chapter in their history book and visualize what they read so that they can answer comprehension questions about the chapter.
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October's Lesson Plan
Students listen to poetry about crocodiles. After discussing the relationship between humans and crocodiles, they make a list of ways humans hurt crocodiles and then write Prelutsky's poem from the crocodile perspective.
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What Do You See?
Students practice visualizing elements from a poem or story. While reading a poem aloud, the instructor models what they see as they read the passage. Students draw a picture of the main character of the story "Because of Winn-Dixie"...
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Don Quixote
High schoolers examine the use of metaphors in literature. In this literary devices lesson, students read poems that feature extended metaphors and compare them to the metaphors used in Don Quixote. High schoolers then try their hand at...
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Visualization
Students practice visualization as a strategy to increase reading comprehension. They practice while the teacher reads a poem to them before reading a poem silently to themselves. Next, they practice making mental images while reading a...
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Whitman and Lincoln
Students determine if Lincoln and Whitman ever met and write a dialogue between the two men. In this Whitman and Lincoln lesson, students read Whitman's poem "Beat! Beat! Drums!" and connect it to the events of Lincoln's presidency....
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Personification Stories
Young scholars create a clay object in which they are to personify. They use their own personal experiences to help the viewer imagine what it would be like to be that particular object. They also watch videos of fables to help them with...
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A Life Lived Well
Students write poems based on words and phrases found in an obituatuary. They write autobiographical obituaries that imagine their own lives and future accomplishments.
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Outer Space Creature
Students read poems by Shel Silverstein about planets and outer space. As a class, they compare and contrast his descriptions to actual facts which have been discovered through explorations. They write a description of an outer space...
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Memory of a Kiss
Third graders read, discuss, and memorize the poem "Jenny Kissed Me." as an example of lyrical poetry. They write a letter to Jenny reliving the memory of her kiss from an elderly person's point of view. They illustrate their poems.