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TITLE	ABSTRACT	GRADE	DATE
A Directed Listening–Thinking Activity for The Tell-Tale Heart	In this lesson, students participate in a Directed Listening–Thinking Activity (DLTA) to improve their listening comprehension and prediction skills. At the end of the lesson, students compose a written response to the story in the form of either an acrostic poem or comic strip.	6-8	2/12/09
A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words: From Image to Detailed Narrative	The old cliche "A picture is worth a thousand words" is put to the test in this lesson. Distribute or show a picture that tells a story and then encourage students to brainstorm words and ideas about the image before writing a story that tells background on the image or extends details on what has happened.	6-8	1/8/09
A World of Readers: Libraries Around the World	Where can students find the newest and most exciting reading material? Do residents of other countries have access to free public libraries? In this lesson, students visit library websites from diverse places, such as the Bahamas, Ireland, Kenya, and New Zealand, to discuss and compare library services throughout the world.	6-8	3/30/07
ABC Bookmaking Builds Vocabulary in the Content Areas	Are you looking for a fun, new way to teach content area vocabulary to your students? How about having them create ABC books? Bookmaking allows students to pinpoint for themselves the words they don't know and to use their own descriptions and illustrations to create an appropriate context for new vocabulary.	6-8	7/21/04
Accountable Book Clubs: Focused Discussions	Looking for more focused book clubs with built-in accountability? This lesson guides students’ literature circle discussions and requires collaborative homework on a wiki. Groups read books involving social issues and use Critical Thinking Maps to guide their discussions.	6-8	4/30/09
Action Is Character: Exploring Character Traits with Adjectives	In this activity, students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using Internet reference tools to compile lists of accurate, powerful adjectives. In class discussion, students support their lists with details from the novel.	6-8	2/15/08
Alliteration in Headline Poems	Students will be introduced to the term alliteration. They will be given examples of alliteration and asked to create their own examples of alliteration. As a project, students will be asked to create a headline poem consisting of 25 words that contain at least three examples of alliteration.	6-8	2/23/06
Alphabiography Project: Totally You	Instead of writing their life stories in a linear fashion, students write their biographies from A to Z in this nontraditional autobiography activity, which was inspired by the book Totally Joe by James Howe. After the entry for each letter in their alphabiographies, students sum up the stories and vignettes by recording the life lessons they learned from the events.	6-8	9/16/09
An Exploration of Text Sets: Supporting All Readers	Text sets focus on one concept, and include books, Web sites, maps, pamphlets, poetry, photographs, almanacs or encyclopedias. In this lesson, students create text set collections on topics of keen interest. They will explore the texts using three reading strategies. Research strategies from your own repertoire can extend the lesson.	6-8	11/19/08
Analyzing Advice as an Introduction to Shakespeare	Popular culture provides an introduction to Shakespeare’s poetic devices in this lesson, which asks students to explore an excerpt from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.	6-8	11/19/08
Astronomy Poetry: Combining Poetry With the Content Areas	Marvel at your students' creativity and mastery of content area topics as they combine science and poetry in this innovative lesson. The lesson can easily be modified for any content area.	6-8	2/12/09
Audience, Purpose, and Language Use in Electronic Messages	With the increasing popularity of e-mail and online instant messaging among today’s teens, a recognizable change has occurred in the language that students use in their writing. This lesson explores the language of electronic messages and how it affects other writing. Furthermore, it explores the freedom and creativity for using Internet abbreviations for specific purposes and examines the importance of a more formal style of writing based on audience.	6-8	4/17/08
Avalanche, Aztek, or Bravada? A Connotation Mini-Lesson	Would you rather drive an Avalanche, an Aztek, a Bravada, a Suburban or a Vue? In this mini-lesson, students examine familiar car names for underlying connotations then proceed through a series of steps, increasing their control over language, until they select words with powerful connotations in their own writing.	6-8	9/16/09
Battling for Liberty: Tecumseh’s and Patrick Henry’s Language of Resistance	This lesson extends the study of Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech to demonstrate the ways Native Americans also resisted oppression through rhetoric and action. Through reading and hearing the speeches of Tecumseh, students develop a new respect for the Native Americans' politically effective and poetic use of language.	6-8	11/20/08
Becoming History Detectives Using Shakespeare’s Secret	Students read the contemporary mystery Shakespeare’s Secret by Elise Broach and discover how the author’s liberal use of historical details enhances the story and can inspire further exploration of historical facts and the creation of a short dramatic skit.	6-8	2/25/09
Beyond the Story: A Dickens of a Party	Students are invited to attend a 19th Century Victorian party, hosted by Scrooge's nephew Fred, to celebrate Scrooge's new outlook on life. The invitation requires that guests assume the persona of a character from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Reading, writing, research, and revelry abound as students explore the internet in search of creating the perfect performance.	6-8	4/8/09
Biography Project: Research and Class Presentation	Students improve their comprehension in this biography project through the use of graphic organizers, rubrics, and cooperative learning. They each research a famous person, make a graphic organizer (a web), present main aspects of the person's life to the class, and give feedback to one another throughout the project.	6-8	2/6/09
Blurring Genre: Exploring Fiction and Nonfiction with Diary of a Worm	Students often believe that fiction writers make everything up, seldom realizing how research is incorporated into entertaining writing. They may believe that research only applies to school writing. In this lesson, students incorporate facts into a variety of text types, creating a class book similar to Diary of a Worm.	6-8	3/11/09
Book Report Alternative: A Character’s Letter to the Editor	Students assume the persona of a character from a book that they have read and write a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper from that character’s perspective, focusing on a specific issue or situation explored in the novel.	6-8	11/19/08
Book Report Alternative: Character and Author Business Cards	When students make business cards for characters in books they've read or for the authors of those books, they're forced to think symbolically in order to create a short, simple text that represents the target appropriately—providing a title, relevant images, and other pertinent information.	6-8	9/21/04
Book Report Alternative: Comic Strips and Cartoon Squares	Students tire of responding to novels in the same ways. They want new ways to think about a work of literature and new ways to dig into it. By creating comic strips or cartoon squares featuring characters in books, they're encouraged to think analytically about the characters, events, and themes they've explored in ways that expand their critical thinking by focusing on crystallizing the significant points of the book in a few short scenes.	6-8	3/16/09
Book Report Alternative: Creating a Childhood for a Character	Students will be introduced to familiar characters, from literature and from popular culture, whom readers first encounter as adults, but whose childhood stories are only told later. Students will then create a childhood for an adult character from a book of their choice.	6-8	2/15/08
Book Report Alternative: Creating Careers for Characters	What if one of the characters in the book you've been reading was looking for a job? This question is the focus of this activity which bridges technical writing and literary analysis by inviting students to become characters in a novel they have read, find a job for those characters, and write application letters and resumes for their assumed persona.	6-8	5/2/08
Book Report Alternative: Hooking a Reader with a Book Cover	In this lesson, students select a book to read based only on its cover art. After reading the book, they analyze the cover and use an interactive tool to create a new cover for it.	6-8	7/16/09
Book Report Alternative: Summary, Symbol, and Analysis in Bookmarks	Students love to make bookmarks on the computer because they get to share their ideas with other readers at their school. Teachers love the project because it gives students practice in summarizing, recognizing symbols, and writing reviews—all while writing for an authentic audience.	6-8	9/15/05
Book Reviews, Annotation, and Web Technology	Integrating technology, research, and the language arts, students work collaboratively on this lesson reviewing books and creating hypertext on the Web. Reading, writing, purpose, and audience are synthesized, resulting in a challenging and creative student project.	6-8	3/20/07
BOOKMATCH: Scaffolding Independent Book Selection	By asking themselves a series of questions, middle school students become aware of their own reading preferences, and learn how to match themselves to just-right books for independent reading.	6-8	7/16/09
Boys Read: Considering Courage in Novels	Engaging stories featuring acts of courage can inspire boys to read and discuss literature with their peers. In this lesson, boys select, read, and discuss a novel with a male protagonist and write a persuasive essay addressing the ways in which the protagonist showed courage.	6-8	2/25/09
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues	Students are invited to confront and discuss issues of injustice and intolerance reading a variety of texts, from Young Adult literature to picture books.	6-8	11/20/08
Building Reading Comprehension Through Think-Alouds	This lesson shows teachers how to use think-alouds in the classroom for improved understanding of texts and as an assessment of reading performance.	6-8	5/16/05
Building Vocabulary: Making Multigenre Glossaries Based on Student Inquiry	This lesson builds vocabulary and encourages active reading by allowing students to choose their own vocabulary words from a text that the class reads. In order to help students absorb and comprehend these new words, they create multigenre glossaries that can then be used as a classroom resource.	6-8	3/11/09
Campaigning for Fair Use: Public Service Announcements on Copyright Awareness	Students explore a range of resources on fair use and copyright then design their own audio public service announcements (PSAs), to be broadcast over the school’s public address system. Work can also be published as podcasts on the Internet. Students tap research and persuasive writing strategies as they design announcements for an audience of their peers.	6-8	8/31/07
Character Clash: A Mini-Lesson on Paragraphing and Dialogue	When writers include dialogue in their stories, one of the questions that frequently comes up is how to structure texts that have changing speakers or thinkers. This lesson helps students identify the structures that will clarify their text by using colored markers or online resources.	6-8	11/19/08
Child Labor: Giving Voice to Child Laborers Through Monologues	Students explore child labor conditions during the Industrial Revolution in England and the United States and around the world today. Researching relevant websites, each student prepares and delivers a monologue in the "voice" of someone who lived during the Industrial Revolution. Students compare past and current child labor using an online Venn diagram.	6-8	4/14/09
Childhood Remembrances: Life and Art Intersect in Nikki Giovanni’s “Nikki-Rosa”	Adapted from Carol Jago’s Nikki Giovanni in the Classroom, this lesson invites students to explore what Jago calls the place “where life and art intersect” by completing a close reading of Giovanni’s poem and then writing about childhood memories of their own.	6-8	11/19/08
Choose Your Own Adventure: A Hypertext Writing Experience	Working in groups, students will read and analyze Choose Your Own Adventure Stories in text or hypertext format and brainstorm to develop setting, characters, and beginning plots for their own adventures. Working in smaller groups and finally individually, students will develop Choose Your Own Adventure Story Web sites.	6-8	9/16/09
Choosing, Chatting, and Collecting: Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy	Students self-select new vocabulary and apply context, experience, and conversation to help them understand the meanings and uses of the words. This strategy can be used with any content area, but in this lesson, an online script from Shakespeare is provided as an example.	6-8	9/14/07
Collaborating, Writing, Linking: Using Wikis to Tell Stories Online	This lesson engages students in the creation and publication of online stories, taking full advantage of the online environment to encourage creativity, connections, and collaboration. Students use wiki technology, which allows users to publish online without specialized skills.	6-8	11/6/07
Color of Silence: Sensory Imagery in Pat Mora’s Poem “Echoes”	Moving from personal experience to practical application, students use their senses to discover new ways to read and write. Pat Mora’s poem “Echoes” is used to demonstrate that our senses are powerful tools for literary analysis and comprehension.	6-8	11/18/08
Compare and Contrast Electronic Text With Traditionally Printed Text	The purpose of this lesson is to familiarize students with the similarities and differences between electronic text and traditionally printed text. Students examine the textual aids included in a textbook and compare them to the textual aids included in an educational website.	6-8	2/6/09
Comparing and Contrasting: Picturing an Organizational Pattern	Using picture books as mentor texts, students learn effective strategies for organizing information that compares and contrasts. Students can then apply appropriate organizational strategies to their own papers.	6-8	6/20/07
Comparing Electronic and Print Texts About the Civil War Soldier	To complete research for any kind of writing project, students need effective comprehension strategies for both print and online text. This lesson has students practice these strategies and compare the similarities and differences in text conventions in print and online texts about the Civil War soldier’s camp life.	6-8	11/21/08
Cooking Up Descriptive Language: Designing Restaurant Menus	Students explore the genre of menus by analyzing existing menus from local restaurants, including a review of adjectives and descriptive writing based on the language included in the menu examples. After establishing the characteristics of the genre, students work in groups to choose a restaurant and then create their own custom menus.	6-8	11/6/06
Copyright Law: From Digital Reprints to Downloads	In this lesson, students look briefly at the history of copyright law and generalize about how and why it has changed over time. Students then apply this information to recent copyright issues, look at these issues from the perspective of a particular group, and create persuasive arguments to convince others to see the issue from their perspective.	6-8	9/16/09
Cosmic Oranges: Observation and Inquiry Through Descriptive Writing and Art	As a jumping-off point for inquiry and research, students use varied methods of observation, including sketching, to write objective and subjective descriptions.	6-8	6/21/07
Cover to Cover: Comparing Books to Movies	Students explore matching texts—novels and the movies adapted from them—to develop their analytical strategies, drawing comparisons between the two texts and hypothesizing about the effect of adaptation. Students design new DVD covers for the movies, reflecting their response to the movie version.	6-8	11/16/07
Creating a Persuasive Podcast	In this lesson, students create and share short podcasts detailing their views on a current event that affects their lives. Students develop the skill of persuasion while practicing critical thinking and improving media literacy.	6-8	7/16/09
Creative Communication Frames: Discovering Similarities between Writing and Art	Build a comparative frame to explore the creative processes of writing and art as communication. Graphic organizers assist the development of comparative vocabulary and generate discussions of analogy and metaphor in art. Apply to a real or virtual tour of an art gallery to develop narrative, expository, or analytical writing.	6-8	1/31/08
Creative Writing Through Wordless Picture Books	In this lesson, students develop their own story lines for wordless picture books. Students explore a variety of wordless picture books, develop story lines both orally and in writing, and share their stories with others. Students use an online, interactive Story Map to assist in the development of story lines.	6-8	11/7/08
Crit Lit for Kids: From Critical Consciousness to Service Learning	An award-winning picture book provides the platform for an introduction to reading with critical awareness. Students explore concepts of social justice through discussion and journal responses. The class plans a service-learning project and creates a multimedia presentation to garner community support for their proposal.	6-8	2/25/09
Critical Literacy in Action: Multimodal Texts on Global Warming	Students use comprehension strategies to understand and interrogate various representations of the effects and possible causes of global warming. They then discuss and evaluate the credibility of different positions on the issue.	6-8	9/30/08
Critical Literacy: Point of View	By the sixth grade, most students are able to identify point of view in texts by recognizing writing in the first person, second person, and third person. In this lesson, students learn to look at texts from different viewpoints. Was the "big bad wolf" really bad? Throughout the lesson, students are encouraged to view texts from different angles.	6-8	10/18/06
Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising	Students investigate the influence of advertising on their daily lives. Choices of clothing, music, and other products can be attributed to what adolescents see and hear on television, radio, and other media. In this lesson, students develop a critical eye toward advertising and investigate the hidden messages that are presented.	6-8	6/21/07
Critical Media Literacy: TV Programs	Television programming has a huge impact on the lives of children. This lesson focuses on the stereotypical and racial messages that are portrayed through television programming with a focus on situational comedies.	6-8	6/21/07
Describe That Face: An Interactive Writing Game	Students create vivid character descriptions, which are posted on the wall interspersed with pictures that match the descriptions. Then they walk around and take notes on their classmates’ descriptive phrases, similes, and metaphors, picking one description–picture set to share with the class.	6-8	6/18/08
Developing a Definition of Reading through Investigation in Middle School	Students will interact with a variety of different texts to uncover a broader meaning of reading as they define reading collaboratively and develop their own Reader’s Profiles modeled after online social networking sites.	6-8	3/11/09
Developing Reading Plans to Support Independent Reading	Students identify books they have read recently and look for patterns connecting those that they enjoyed the most. Once they've analyzed their past readings, students complete a reading plan, a simple wish list of books they hope to read in the future, based on their preferences in the past. The finished list becomes another supporting resource to guide independent readers.	6-8	5/2/08
Developing Searching, Skimming, and Scanning Skills With Internet Bingo	Students gain the media literacy skills of skimming and scanning text and selecting key terms for Internet searches. The teacher introduces these strategies using a think-aloud approach, and students practice them by searching a website to fill in a Bingo board.	6-8	2/27/07
Developing Story Structure With Paper-Bag Skits	This lesson engages students in an interactive, dramatic activity to enhance their understanding of story structure and story elements. Using paper bags containing props, cooperative groups create semi-impromptu skits. Students use online tools as they develop the story elements in their skits.	6-8	2/25/09
Digital Reflections: Expressing Understanding of Content Through Photography	Students make self–text–world connections to a topic related to science (nature) or history as they collaboratively design a multimedia presentation. After writing and recording a two-minute descriptive or persuasive script, they illustrate the text with photographs selected from Internet resources.	6-8	4/14/09
Discovering Memory: Li-Young Lee’s Poem “Mnemonic” and the Brain	In this cross-curricular poetry and biology lesson, Li-Young Lee’s poem “Mnemonic” is used to explore how memory works. Students learn about memory by doing a memory-writing exercise, studying the brain to understand how it affects memory, reading Lee’s poem “Mnemonic,” and creating multigenre projects to demonstrate their understanding of memory.	6-8	11/18/08
Doodle Splash: Using Graphics to Discuss Literature	Taking advantage of students’ natural tendency to doodle, students keep a doodle journal while reading short stories by a common author. In small groups, students combine their doodles into a graphic representation of the text that they present to the class while discussing their story. Students also do individual graphics and, ultimately, write group essays analyzing the author’s themes.	6-8	11/15/05
Dynamic Duo Text Talks: Examining the Content of Internet Sites	This introductory lesson exposes students to a variety of online texts about Anne Frank and the Holocaust prior to more extensive study of these topics. Students are encouraged to cooperatively examine Internet sites as a primary source of information, and then share their impressions and opinions of the various sites.	6-8	6/25/07
E-pals Around the World	This lesson provides teachers and students with an exciting way to build literacy skills in the classroom. Students learn appropriate formats for writing friendly letters and e-mail messages. Not only will students develop their reading and writing abilities, but they will also learn about other cultures, languages, and geographic areas.	6-8	11/21/08
Empowered Fiction Writers: Generating and Organizing Ideas for Story Writing	Prewriting strategies can help students overcome stumbling blocks on the path to written expression. Some students encounter difficulties when attempting to generate ideas for a story; others can produce the ideas but struggle with organization. This lesson provides students with strategies for both generating and organizing narrative writing.	6-8	2/25/09
Enchanting Readers with Revisionist Fairy Tales	This lesson asks students to examine three examples of revisionist fairy tales—a book, a graphic novel, and a poem—in which female characters act in empowered roles rather than behaving helpless and submissive, which is often the case in traditional folk or fairy tales.	6-8	11/19/08
Entering History: Nikki Giovanni and Martin Luther King, Jr.	Nikki Giovanni’s poem “The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.” is paired with Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, taking students on a quest through time to the civil rights movement. After completing student-centered vocabulary activities, students perform the speech readers’ theater style and synthesize their learning by writing reflections.	6-8	1/27/09
Every Punctuation Mark Matters: A Mini-Lesson on Semicolons	Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" demonstrates that even the smallest punctuation mark signals a stylistic decision, distinguishing one writer from another and enabling an author to move an audience. In this mini-lesson, students first explore Dr. King's use of semicolons and their rhetorical significance then apply the lesson to their own writing by searching for ways to follow Dr. King's model and use the punctuation mark in their own writing.	6-8	7/16/09
Everyone Loves a Mystery: A Genre Study	In this lesson, students read short mystery stories and use Internet resources to examine characteristic of the genre, such as vocabulary and story elements. Students then write their own mystery stories and publish them electronically.	6-8	2/12/09
Examining Island of the Blue Dolphins through a Literary Lens	This lesson invites students at all English proficiency levels, including English Language Learners (ELLs), to read, discuss, and react to Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins. Students examine Karana’s character development after discussing personal experiences with courage and adversity. Students then look for examples of courage in their community.	6-8	5/1/07
Exploring and Sharing Family Stories	In this lesson, students interview family members about specific life events and write a personal narrative based on shared recollections.	6-8	2/12/09
Exploring Author's Voice Using Jane Addams Award-Winning Books	This lesson uses Jane Addams Award-winning books to explore author's voice. After reading and examining The Yellow Star by Carmen Agra Deedy, a Jane Addams Honor Book in 2001, students choose another Jane Addams Award-winning book for personal investigation.	6-8	2/27/09
Exploring Careers Using the Internet	Students use current Web technologies to investigate various occupations and share their findings on a class blog. Lesson activities help students develop critical writing skills and further content area learning.	6-8	7/1/09
Exploring Change through Allegory and Poetry	In this lesson, students explore the theme of change through allegory and poetry. Students read an example of literary allegory, review basic literary concepts, complete a literary elements map and plot diagram, create a pictorial allegory, and write a diamante poem related to the theme of change.	6-8	9/30/08
Exploring Free Speech and Persuasion with Nothing But The Truth	After reading Avi’s Nothing But The Truth and examining the resources related to First Amendment and student rights, students will decide whether the rights of Philip, the protagonist in the novel, are violated. After making their decision, students compose and present position statement and supporting evidence to the class.	6-8	7/16/09
Exploring Plagiarism, Copyright, and Paraphrasing	This lesson provides a background for students on copyright, fair use, plagiarism, and paraphrasing. Guidelines for copyright and fair use are discussed, as well as strategies for paraphrasing and the consequences of plagiarism.	6-8	2/27/09
Expository Escapade—Detective’s Handbook	Students will combine reading in the detective fiction genre with expository writing. Embedded in this unit are reading and writing skills such as defining, editing, explaining, illustrating, justifying, revising, supporting, and validating.	6-8	3/14/05
Fairy Tale Autobiographies	Students read and analyze fairy tales from several cultural backgrounds, identifying common elements. Choosing common situations and working in small groups, students write original fairy tales, following a process method that includes peer review and encourages using picture books as models.	6-8	1/26/09
Fighting Injustice by Studying Lessons of the Past	This lesson engages students in a study of social injustice using the Holocaust, the Trail of Tears, and the Japanese–American Internment during World War II. Students debate and discuss their responses to assigned readings.	6-8	7/1/09
Finding Figurative Language in The Phantom Tollbooth	This lesson is an exploration of figurative language using the novel The Phantom Tollbooth and various Web resources. Students examine figurative language in the story and create a chart representing the literal and figurative meanings of words and phrases.	6-8	11/20/08
Finding the Science Behind Science Fiction through Paired Readings	Science fiction offers students opportunities to discuss the “what ifs” within the context of scientific principles. This lesson plan invites students to read science fiction texts and then use nonfiction texts to extrapolate the scientific principles presented.	6-8	12/9/08
Flip-a-Chip: Examining Affixes and Roots to Build Vocabulary	Flip-a-Chip is a novel approach to word study that promotes vocabulary development. The activity provides hands-on practice with affixes and roots and promotes comprehension through structural analysis and vocabulary in context.	6-8	9/16/09
Focusing Reader Response Through Vocabulary Analysis	Students suggest words that they associate with a novel they have recently read, ranging from details about the plot to feelings about a character; then, small groups of students arrange the collected words into at least four categories, that they then present and explain to the class.	6-8	5/1/09
Found Poems/Parallel Poems	Students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading.	6-8	12/8/08
Girls Read: Online Literature Circles	Girls develop skills in reading, analysis, and written expression as they share their thoughts about literature with e-mail pen pals and in classroom literature circles. They also explore a larger literacy community when they visit and contribute to a website devoted to adolescent literature.	6-8	2/25/09
GIST: A Summarizing Strategy for Use in Any Content Area	GIST is a summarizing technique for use in any content area. This series of lessons guides students through learning and applying the strategy in a format that facilitates transfer. It engages learners through online research and writing activities based on topical news stories.	6-8	9/13/07
Give Them a Hand: Promoting Positive Interaction in Literature Circles	Students observe, discuss, and practice specific skills designed to facilitate positive and effective discussion among members of a Literature Circle. Students are encouraged to interact with one another in a respectful manner by exchanging meaningful compliments. These skills are valuable for any activity that involves group interaction.	6-8	7/1/08
Graphic Life Map	In this prewriting activity for personal memoir or autobiographical writing, students brainstorm important memories, choose graphics to represent these memories, and construct a life map, connecting drawings and captions of high and low points with a highway.	6-8	3/6/08
Grocery Store Scavenger Hunt: Researching Nutrition to Advertise for Health	Students learn about the foods they eat, define food label terms, and research healthful alternatives in order to create advertisements for healthful, tasty foods. In preparation for developing their own advertisements, students analyze published advertisements to better understand how companies use persuasion to market products to specific audiences.	6-8	3/10/09
Guided Comprehension in Action: Teaching Summarizing With the Bio-Cube	Biographies can engage and motivate students in the classroom, helping them make personal connections to figures both past and present. They can also be used to teach students information about research and summarizing. In this lesson, students use websites to research self-chosen biography subjects and complete an online summarizing tool.	6-8	2/25/09
He Said/She Said: Analyzing Gender Roles through Dialogue	This lesson provides an opportunity to analyze gender roles and stereotypes by examining dialogue in a short story or novel. By asking students to explore the gender assumptions in their readings, teachers can encourage students to question more fully the “norms” they see and often tacitly accept.	6-8	1/16/09
Heroes Around Us	In this lesson, students collaboratively define heroism and discover that heroes can be everyday people who perform brave and noble deeds, often in service to others. Readings and reports on the lives of those honored as heroes reinforce the concept that anyone can become a hero.	6-8	7/12/07
Honoring Our Veterans Through Poetry Prewriting	This lesson uses the informational power of the Internet for a prewriting activity. Through various Internet sites, students gather information about the history and celebration practices associated with Veterans Day. Following the prewriting activity, students write content-rich poems that honor our veterans.	6-8	11/6/06
I've Got It Covered! Creating Magazine Covers to Summarize Texts	In this lesson, students identify main ideas in textbook chapters and create magazine covers that express those ideas in words and pictures.	6-8	10/31/07
Imagine That! Playing with Genre through Newspapers and Short Stories	Students identify genre characteristics for narrative short stories and journalistic newspaper articles then practice both genres by turning a short story into a news article and an article into a short story.	6-8	5/1/09
Improve Comprehension Using a Word Card Game With Root Words and Affixes	This lesson, which is quick, focused, and engaging, has students study common root words and affixes and learn how to improve comprehension and spelling with their new knowledge. Working in small groups, students make and play a card game in which the challenge is to form words with a prefix, root word, and suffix.	6-8	2/26/09
Improve Students’ Writing Using Online Workshops	Students read a picture book full of fantastical if statements before writing their own. They then conduct an online writer’s workshop focusing on peer review and revision. When their statements are final, students create a page for a class book.	6-8	11/18/08
In the Poet's Shoes: Performing Poetry and Building Meaning	In this lesson, students analyze a variety of poets and their poetry by reading and listening to their work. Students then use information gathered from Internet resources to select a favorite poet and perform one of their poems for the class.	6-8	4/14/09
Inquiry on the Internet: Evaluating Web Pages for a Class Collection	In this lesson plan, students explore a class inquiry project, collecting Web-based resources that can be used for further study during the course of the class or for more in-depth projects. Students use Internet search engines and Web analysis checklists and questions to find and evaluate online resources then write annotations that explain how and why the items they have found will be valuable to the class.	6-8	11/19/08
Inside or Outside? A Mini-Lesson on Quotation Marks and More	Does that period go inside the quotation marks or outside them? When a writing activity includes dialogue, you're guaranteed to hear that question more than once. This lesson helps students identify the conventions and apply them to their text.	6-8	9/23/04
Internalization of Vocabulary Through the Use of a Word Map	Middle school students can internalize vocabulary through the use of a concrete and sequential word map. This multisensory method, which incorporates sketching, is intended as one method that students can choose to increase their personal vocabularies.	6-8	9/14/07
Introducing Each Other: Interviews, Memoirs, Photos, and Internet Research	Students read, write, speak, listen, and research as they interview a partner and write an article, write a personal memoir, take partner photographs, and use the Internet to find pictures and information illustrating their partners’ interests. Results are shared in the form of a poster and a classroom presentation.	6-8	8/15/05
Introducing Shakespeare: Character Journals and Point of View	Students develop insight into character motivations and personality by writing a journal from the point of view of a specific Shakespeare character. They also explore how personal and cultural preconceptions shape our interpretation of characters and events.	6-8	2/25/09
Introducing Shakespeare: Exploring Persona and Character Motivations	Students are introduced to the concept of persona and examine how personality is revealed in a drama. To develop a richer understanding of Shakespeare's characters, students research Renaissance society and customs. After watching a scene from a Shakespeare play, students discuss the motivations of key characters and the relationships among them.	6-8	2/25/09
Introducing Shakespeare: The Bard's English	Students are introduced to concepts of language change as they examine how words are borrowed or created and how vocabulary shifts. After exploring the vocabulary of Shakespeare's time and reading scenes from a Shakespeare play, students create original written and spoken dialogue incorporating Elizabethan words and phrases.	6-8	2/25/09
Inventing and Presenting Unit 1: Analyzing Nonfiction and Inventing Solutions	Students design, build, and test inventions to solve problems they have identified. All data is recorded using commonly accepted scientific principles, and students propose in writing an appropriate speech for sharing the results of their experimentation. Final speeches, including graphs, brochures, PowerPoint Slides, and demonstrations, are presented before combined classes.	6-8	2/15/05
Inventing and Presenting Unit 2: Effective Speeches and Building the Invention	Students design, build, and test inventions to solve problems they have identified. All data is recorded using commonly accepted scientific principles, and students propose in writing an appropriate speech for sharing the results of their experimentation. Final speeches, including graphs, brochures, PowerPoint Slides, and demonstrations, are presented before combined classes.	6-8	6/23/08
Inventing and Presenting Unit 3: Persuasive Speaking and Invention Promotion	Students design, build, and test inventions to solve problems they have identified. All data is recorded using commonly accepted scientific principles, and students propose in writing an appropriate speech for sharing the results of their experimentation. Final speeches, including graphs, brochures, PowerPoint Slides, and demonstrations, are presented before combined classes.	6-8	2/15/05
Investigating Names to Explore Personal History and Cultural Traditions	In this lesson, students investigate the meanings and origins of their own names in order to establish their own personal histories and to explore cultural significance of naming traditions. After Internet research and interviews with family or community members, students write about their own names, using a passage from Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street as a model.	6-8	5/28/09
Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry Project	As students progress though this inquiry project, they explore a variety of resources—texts, images, sounds, photos, and other artifacts—as they learn about the Holocaust. Working collaboratively, they investigate the materials, prepare response to share orally with the class, and produce a topic-based newspaper to complete their research.	6-8	9/16/09
Keywords: Learning to Focus Internet Research	Today’s students need to be prepared for the new literacies that are central to the use of information technology and the acquisition of knowledge in a digital environment. This lesson focuses on effective strategies for searching for information on the Internet.	6-8	5/29/08
Leading to Great Places in the Middle School Classroom	Tapping existing texts for models is one of the best strategies for writer’s workshop. This mini-lesson examines types of leads in prominent young adult literature and asks students to search for great leads and then try their own hand at writing leads.	6-8	10/23/08
Learning Clubs: Motivating Middle School Readers and Writers	Learning clubs draw on strategies and systems common to literature circles and book clubs. They motivate students to engage with multiple types of texts to support learning across content areas. Learning clubs center on locating curricular topics to investigate and encourage students to use literacy as a vehicle for learning.	6-8	5/28/09
Let it Grow: An Inquiry-Based Organic Gardening Research Project	This inquiry-based project is scaffolded for middle school students with low literacy skills. Students plant seeds, observe their growing garden, develop research questions, and do Internet and book research on their chosen plant. They then create signs and present their research to the class.	6-8	2/12/09
Letters and Learning Genre	Combining their prior knowledge of letters with several books containing letters, students learn how genres can flex to accomplish different purposes for different contexts. Students show their understanding of genre by rewriting a story and reflecting on how a traditional story differs from a story told in letters.	6-8	11/19/08
Lights, Camera, Action: Interviewing a Book Character	After reading a novel as a group, students prepare a television talk show that uses the characters from the story as the acting characters on the show. Students develop interview-style questions and answers for a character in the novel, and then act out the interview in class.	6-8	3/28/07
Literary Characters on Trial: Combining Persuasion and Literary Analysis	Using characters from a piece of literature, students choose and portray characters and relevant situations then use textual evidence to try the character in a mock trial. Students exercise their oral and written persuasion skills by playing a role in a mock trial of a literary character. The class will act as a jury for the literary trial.	6-8	11/20/08
Literature Circle Roles Reframed: Reading as a Film Crew	Capture students’ enthusiasm for film and transfer it to reading and literature by substituting film production roles for the traditional literature circle roles.	6-8	3/10/06
Lonely as a Cloud: Using Poetry to Understand Similes	Students identify similes in poetry and gain experience in using similes as a poetic device in their own work. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to write similes as quick as a wink!	6-8	2/12/09
Making Personal and Cultural Connections Using A Girl Named Disaster	Using A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer, students learn about Africa, Shona traditions, geography, and society. They also develop critical-thinking skills and self-awareness as they examine cultural similarities and differences and make personal connections to the story. This lesson is most appropriate for middle school students.	6-8	8/17/09
Media Literacy: Examining the World of TV Teens	In this lesson, students compare how characters are portrayed in different forms of media (i.e., books, television shows, and movies) and analyze characters, motivations, problems, and solutions from a television series of their choosing. They then propose a new television series that more realistically portrays teenagers today.	6-8	7/27/09
Memories Matter: The Giver and Descriptive Writing Memoirs	Using The Giver, students will discuss the importance of having a recorded history of humanity. This understanding provides context for descriptive writing of students’ own history in a lesson that integrates personal writing, research, and response to literature.	6-8	3/11/09
Mind Pictures: Strategies That Enhance Mental Imagery While Reading	This lesson involves having students use visual images to build background knowledge and improve reading comprehension. The strategies lead students toward independent use of skills that enable them to construct mental images using content-related picture books, movie clips, and illustrations.	6-8	2/12/09
Modeling Reading and Analysis Processes with the Works of Edgar Allan Poe	Explore reading strategies using the think-aloud process as students investigate connections between the life and writings of Edgar Allan Poe in this lesson plan, which begins with an in-depth exploration of “The Raven.” Students move from a full-class reading of the poem to small-group readings of Poe’s short stories and conclude the unit with individual projects that explore the readings in more detail. The lesson includes options, including direct instruction and an inquiry-based model.	6-8	11/20/08
More than One Way to Create Vivid Verbs	One way to spice up your verbs is to learn new vocabulary. Or you can just use ordinary verbs in a new way! This lesson teaches students how to use old verbs in a new way, thus creating new and fresh descriptive phrases.	6-8	3/20/09
My Life/Your Life: A Look at Your Parents’ Past	When students have opportunities to connect their life experiences with reading and writing, they grow as literacy learners. In this lesson, students explore their parents’ experiences as middle school students, create imaginary diary entries, and develop dramatic skits.	6-8	7/27/09
Myth and Truth: The “First Thanksgiving”	Behind every myth are many possible truths allowing us to discover who we were as peoples and who we are today. By exploring myths surrounding the Wampanoag, the pilgrims, and the "First Thanksgiving," this lesson asks students to think critically about commonly believed myths regarding the Wampanoag Indians in colonial America.	6-8	11/20/08
Nature Study Outdoor Treasure Hunts (with Spanish language option)	Following a teacher-modeled treasure hunt, students create their own treasure hunts, incorporating research and imagination. Students write stories from the perspective of an animal, outlining a journey through its habitat. They then hide clues and challenge classmates to find them. Materials and websites are also included in Spanish.	6-8	12/11/08
No More Bullying: Understanding the Problem, Building Bully-Free Environments	In this lesson, students construct an understanding of bullying by focusing on the causes, prevalence, consequences, and reasons it is unacceptable. They examine local incidents of bullying, report their findings, and explore solutions. Students synthesize their knowledge by planning the first steps of a multifaceted Bullying Intervention Campaign.	6-8	8/17/09
On a Musical Note: Exploring Reading Strategies by Creating a Soundtrack	Take advantage of students’ interest in music and movies with this lesson that asks students to create a soundtrack for a novel that they have read. As students search for songs and explain their choices, they engage in such traditional reading strategies as predicting, visualizing, and questioning. The activity can be completed as a response to a class-read novel or as a book report alternative.	6-8	1/27/09
Once Upon a Fairy Tale: Teaching Revision as a Concept	Students sometimes have trouble understanding the difference between the global issues of revision and the local ones of editing. In this lesson, students use fractured fairy tales to enhance understanding and then practice revision and editing as separate activities when they write their own versions of other fairy tales.	6-8	8/10/06
Painting Poetry: Using Visual Representation as a Response to Literature	This lesson has students read the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams and respond to the poem's language by creating mixed-media visual representations of its imagery. Students then explain their interpretations in writing and compare them with those of their peers.	6-8	2/12/09
Peer Review: Narrative	"I liked the story about you and Paul. I think you should add a little more detail and you should change the end two sentences so it will sound better." Sound familiar? This student response to a peer's draft is all too typical. The PQP technique—Praise–Question–Polish—encourages student writers to find and correct their own errors, using self-editing knowledge to empower them as writers, rather than asking them to make others' corrections.	6-8	7/12/07
Persuading the Principal: Writing Persuasive Letters About School Issues	Adolescents love to share their opinions about the way life “should be.” This lesson gives students the opportunity to examine editorials and write their own persuasive letters on issues that are important in their school community.	6-8	10/15/08
Persuasive Essay: Environmental Issues	Critical stance and development of a strong argument are key strategies when writing to convince someone to agree with your position on a topic. This lesson focuses on having students create persuasive essays that address environmental issues that are relevant to their lives.	6-8	9/13/07
Picture Books as Framing Texts: Research Paper Strategies for Struggling Writers	In this lesson, picture books give students frames for structuring research projects, freeing them from the language of their encyclopedia sources and allowing them to focus their attention on the content of their papers. Using picture books as models, students are able to think more about what to say and less about how to say it, which leads to better learning experiences and better writing.	6-8	11/19/08
Play Ball! Encouraging Critical Thinking Through Baseball Questions	This lesson fosters critical thinking by giving students an opportunity to research and discuss baseball facts and championship moments. Working cooperatively, students form and analyze questions, which they use to create and play a trivia game. Although the lesson uses a baseball theme, it can be applied to any topic.	6-8	9/16/09
Plot Structure: A Literary Elements Mini-Lesson	Using a triangle-shaped graphic organizer, Freytag’s Pyramid, students explore the basic literary element of plot. The graphic organizer helps students identify narrative structures that are familiar and compare those structures to those that authors use when composing a story.	6-8	11/20/08
Plotting a Plan to Improve Writing: Using Plot Scaffolds	Students use plot scaffolds based upon literary genres, historical events, or popular stories to create written narratives.	6-8	4/21/08
Polishing Preposition Skills through Poetry and Publication	Middle grade students deepen and refine their understanding of prepositions through the authentic model of the literature of Ruth Heller. Students publish a poem using the Multigenre Mapper and refine their understanding of more sophisticated preposition use through a Flip Book project.	6-8	12/3/07
Postmodern Picture Books in the Middle School	Students analyze the structure of a postmodern picture book to uncover how authors form relationships between words and illustrations. An online teacher resource explains the intent of the picture book Black and White and provides background information and suggestions for classroom discussion.	6-8	2/6/09
Press Conference for Bud, Not Buddy	This lesson is designed for middle school students reading Bud, Not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis. The lesson encourages students to use higher-level thinking and discussion skills, as well as to take on the perspectives of different characters. The activities are interactive, and focus on comprehension skills.	6-8	9/14/07
Promoting Diversity in the Classroom and School Library through Social Action	Students explore the effects of stereotypes by analyzing children’s books; then, they use their findings to promote diversity by matching stereotypical portrayals and coverage of issues with balanced and diverse texts. Students create bookmarks that encourage readers to question the assumptions of stereotyped books and to seek out matching, balanced texts.	6-8	9/13/07
Proverbs: An Introduction	Out of the frying pan and into the fire! A stitch in time saves nine! Look before you leap! In this lesson, students will be introduced to the concept of proverbs and explore how proverbs such as these, meant to convey cultural knowledge and wisdom, are often closely tied to a culture’s values and everyday experience, although their meanings are not always readily apparent to us today.	6-8	3/20/07
Proverbs: At Home and around the World	Proverbs in one culture are frequently similar to proverbs expressed in other cultures. For instance, the French "Qui vole un oeuf vole un boeuf" translates to "He who steals eggs steals cattle"; but your students will likely be more familiar with the American proverb "Give him an inch and he'll take a mile." In this lesson, students work with proverbs from home and from around the world, exploring how these maxims are tied to a culture’s values and everyday experience.	6-8	7/13/07
Proverbs: Contemporary Proverbs	"Don't store all your data on one disk" is a contemporary update of the traditional proverb "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." Such traditional proverbs are often closely tied to a culture’s values and everyday experience. As a result, their meanings are not always readily apparent to us today. This lesson challenges students to craft more apparent meanings for traditional maxims by updating proverbs from around the world and writing proverbs of their own.	6-8	7/20/07
Reading and Analyzing Multigenre Texts	In this lesson plan, students develop a definition of multigenre texts by exploring a multigenre picture book, short chapter books, and, if desired, multigenre novels. Students will brainstorm alone and together what they will need as readers to read and understand multigenre texts successfully. The students will share findings and discuss strategies needed to comprehend, and by extension to write, these texts.	6-8	11/19/08
Reading and Writing Workshop: Freak the Mighty	This novel study of Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick includes the modeling and practicing of specific reading comprehension strategies, vocabulary and word study, a figurative language activity, and a selection of final projects which can be used for assessment with the accompanying rubric.	6-8	12/8/08
Reciprocal Revision: Making Peer Feedback Meaningful	This lesson uses a reciprocal teaching method whereby students use specific strategies (i.e., predicting, summarizing, clarifying, and questioning) to more constructively offer peer feedback during the writing process.	6-8	3/8/06
Robert Frost Prompts the Poet in You	After an introduction to three Robert Frost poems, students co-create a poetry prompt. They then use the poetry prompt to write their own poems in the spirit of Frost's poetry.	6-8	2/12/09
Scaffolding Comprehension Strategies Using Graphic Organizers	To facilitate comprehension during and after reading, students apply four reading strategies: preview, click and clunk, get the gist, and wrap-up. Graphic organizers are used for scaffolding of these strategies while students work together in cooperative groups.	6-8	6/21/07
Scaffolding Methods for Research Paper Writing	A research paper scaffold guides students through the process of writing a four- to five-page paper suitable for events such as science or social science fairs. Step-by-step procedures support students as they select a topic using an inquiry-based approach, examine informational text, and practice genre-specific strategies for expository writing.	6-8	2/17/09
Scaling Back to Essentials: Scaffolding Summarization With Fishbone Mapping	This lesson promotes comprehension of content area texts using a fishbone map graphic organizer for summarization. Through teacher modeling and guided practice, students identify main ideas by generalizing from repeated references. Students also make connections among ideas within the text and write summaries in their own words.	6-8	4/14/09
Seeing Integration from Different Viewpoints	In this Directed Reading–Thinking activity, students read about the first black child to attend an all-white school in New Orleans, Louisiana. Students then use a strategy that has them look at issues from a variety of perspectives to explore different ways of thinking about school integration.	6-8	8/17/09
Shared Spelling Strategies	Students increase their spelling accuracy (i.e., standard) and their retention by "constructing" spelling using sound, sight recall, and analyzing strategies, among others, instead of memorizing lists of words. The aim is to deal with spelling during drafting while preserving fluency.	6-8	3/20/07
She Did What? Revising for Connotation	Did she walk, skip, amble, dance? In this mini-lesson, students examine the simple sentence "She walked into the room." Students act out ways that the student in the sentence might enter the room, revising the sample sentence to increase the specificity of the word and explore connotation. Students follow this demonstration by selecting words with powerful connotations for their own writing.	6-8	4/14/09
Slipping, Sliding, Tumbling: Reinforcing Cause and Effect Through Diamante Poems	In this lesson, students practice identifying cause and effect, an important introduction to higher order thinking. Students begin by brainstorming cause and effect statements. They are then introduced to the diamante form of poetry and apply their knowledge by creating cause and effect diamante poems.	6-8	2/25/09
Solving Word Meanings: Engaging Strategies for Vocabulary Development	This lesson involves the combined use of two strategies, context clues and semantic gradients, to enhance students’ vocabulary growth and reading comprehension.	6-8	10/31/07
Spelling Patterns “Go Fish” Card Game	Students use sets of words that share a spelling pattern to create a card game similar to “Go Fish,” then play the game in small groups. These activities can help students improve their spelling skills by building awareness of some common yet challenging spelling patterns.	6-8	2/26/09
Story Character Homepage	A project for literature circles or class novels to develop understanding of a character. In groups students will look at examples of homepages on the Internet, note what elements most contain, and use them as models to create a homepage for their chosen character.	6-8	6/2/05
Student Contracting	This lesson will help your students become more engaged and motivated by developing learning contracts in the classroom. Reading and writing is the focus of the lesson; however, contracts can easily be incorporated into all subject areas for a variety of purposes.	6-8	7/28/05
Students as Creators: Exploring Copyright	In this lesson, students learn and use strategies for incorporating multimedia resources in their own works without violating copyright law. The tables then are turned as students contemplate how original works they have created are in turn protected by copyright law.	6-8	2/27/09
Students as Creators: Exploring Multimedia	In this lesson, students analyze an online multimedia resource as an introduction to the genre. They then create an original multimedia project.	6-8	2/27/09
Supporting Vocabulary Development with EASE	This lesson plan allows teachers to enrich students’ oral and written language with an easy and systematic routine for teaching academic and robust vocabulary: EASE! Enunciate, Associate, Synthesize, and Emphasize the words you want students to use in classroom writing and conversations.	6-8	8/10/06
Swish! Pow! Whack! Teaching Onomatopoeia Through Sports Poetry	In this lesson, students will learn about onomatopoeia using the sounds associated with sports. They will read and listen to sports poems, then create their own onomatopoeic sports poems, add illustrations, and compile their work in a flip book. Finally, students will share their flip books with their classmates.	6-8	3/9/09
Teaching Voice with Anthony Browne’s Voices in the Park	Well-crafted characters, plots, and settings might attract readers to a story. Without a distinctive voice, however, those elements will not keep a reader interested. In this lesson, students analyze Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne to determine how an author creates voice and to apply that knowledge to writing.	6-8	6/28/07
Technology and Copyright Law: A “Futurespective”	In this lesson, students review some copyright disputes involving new technologies. They write newspaper articles predicting the outcome of current disputes and anticipating disputes that they think may arise in the future with new technologies or new uses for existing technologies.	6-8	2/27/09
Tell and Show: Writing With Words and Video	Written text can enhance—and be enhanced—by adding visuals such as video footage. In this lesson students explore how written and spoken narration enhances video footage, ultimately writing an essay that becomes a series of captions for a teacher-created video.	6-8	12/11/07
Tenement Life: Mapping Texts and Making Models	Students explore conditions of tenement living in the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Learning about reformers of the time, students study features of informational text to improve comprehension. After visiting additional websites and writing in journals, students work together to construct tenement apartment models.	6-8	9/14/07
Texting a Response to Lord of the Flies	After reading Lord of the Flies, students use text messages to create a summary of the book by choosing various scenes within the novel that prompt them to write a text message from one of the characters to an imagined audience off the island.	6-8	7/27/09
Textmasters: Shaking Up Textbook Reading in Science Classrooms	Students will become masters at comprehending content area texts with this spin on literature circles. The Textmasters strategy invites students to adopt roles that promote collaborative learning.	6-8	10/7/09
The Big, Bad Wolf...Is This a Fact?	This lesson uses nonfiction trade books to increase comprehension, vocabulary, and research skills, and boost students willingness to read. Activities include sustained silent reading (SSR), book discussions, teacher modeling, journal responses, research, and use of multimedia software to create presentations.	6-8	6/25/07
The History Behind Song Lyrics	In this lesson, students examine the song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. In groups, students research the items listed in the song, looking at their historical relevance and document their findings using an online chart. The students will then expand their learning by choosing from a menu of related projects.	6-8	5/2/08
The Magnetism of Language: Parts of Speech, Poetry, and Word Play	This lesson integrates the study of grammar with critical-thinking skills and creative writing. Students review parts of speech, looking particularly at their function in poetry. They then identify parts of speech in a nonsensical poem before making magnetic poetry kits and writing their own poems. The lesson can also be used with some high school students.	6-8	4/14/08
The Mysteries of Memory: Memorization Techniques That Work	Memory skills can by improved through techniques that help to integrate new information into long-term memory. Students learn about how memory works and then practice memory strategies involving visualization and making associations, applying these strategies to reading comprehension and memorization tasks.	6-8	3/15/07
The Reading Performance: Understanding Fluency Through Oral Interpretation	This lesson presents an adaptation of the oral recitation lesson: students talk in explicit terms about prosody and gain a new appreciation for written literature intended for oral performance. Technology activities are integrated to instill the value of technology in shaping students' life-long appreciation of literature.	6-8	7/27/05
Thoughtful Threads: Sparking Rich Online Discussions	This lesson, which is also appropriate for fifth-grade students, guides teachers and students through the process of engaging in online literature circles. The focus of the lesson is to increase the quality of students' discussions by promoting effective student-created discussion prompts, thoughtful replies by group members, and the use of self-assessment and reflection.	6-8	5/13/09
Thrills and Chills! Using Scary Stories to Motivate Students to Read	Use the popular Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine, or any popular scary story, to motivate even the most reluctant readers to read for enjoyment, explore story elements, and create scary stories.	6-8	2/12/09
Timelines and Texts: Motivating Students to Read Nonfiction	Using an historical timeline and their prior knowledge of events, students predict when specific inventions were produced. After sharing their predictions in pairs/trios, they revise their timelines for accuracy, using Web resources. Through discussion, they consider the connections between historical events and when inventions were created.	6-8	9/14/07
Travel Brochures: Highlighting the Setting of a Story	When reading a text, readers are often transported to the places mentioned through words and descriptions. This lesson plan invites students to think about the details in the texts they have read and then create a travel brochure about the setting. Students learn more about the places mentioned in the text while researching the setting of their text.	6-8	6/15/06
Traveling the Road to Freedom Through Research and Historical Fiction	In this lesson, students read Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen and True North by Kathryn Lasky to gain an understanding of slavery and the Underground Railroad. They also participate in a WebQuest to explore various historical perspectives and develop a character for their own piece of historical fiction.	6-8	2/12/09
Using a Word Journal to Create a Personal Dictionary	Students keep track of unfamiliar words they encounter while reading various texts. Using a word journal notebook, students explore the perceived meaning and the standard dictionary meaning of these words. Students then create a personal dictionary in PowerPoint® using the words recorded in their word journal notebook.	6-8	6/25/07
Using Children’s Literature to Develop Classroom Community	These lessons use children's literature to develop and strengthen community in the classroom. The lessons allow students to appreciate their individual strengths and abilities, while simultaneously developing skills for cooperative learning.	6-8	4/25/08
Using Classic Poetry to Challenge and Enrich Students' Writing	Through the reading of classic poetry and through the construction of open-ended writing prompts, students discover and experiment with reading and writing connections.	6-8	2/12/09
Using Picture Books to Explore Identity, Stereotyping, and Discrimination	This lesson exposes students in sixth through eighth grade to picture books, which, although intended for younger readers, contain complex stories that explore the meaning of identity, stereotypes, and discrimination. Students discuss the books, practice summarizing them, and compare them before discussing what they can do to fight discrimination.	6-8	2/25/09
Using QARs to Develop Comprehension and Reflective Reading Habits	Using whole-class, small-group, and individual instruction, this lesson shows students how to ask and answer different levels of questions in an effort to enhance reading comprehension. Students use the question-answer relationship (QAR) strategy to become more aware of their own internal reading processes.	6-8	3/8/06
Using Technology to Analyze and Illustrate Symbolism in Night	This lesson, which can also be used for the high school grades, has students explore the use of symbolism in Elie Wiesel's Night. Students synthesize what they have learned by using an online tool to illustrate their ideas and creating a photomontage of images and text culled from Internet sources.	6-8	9/29/09
Using the Check and Line Method to Enhance Reading Comprehension	Although basal textbooks are often considered a teaching faux pas, they are in fact still purchased and issued to students to supplement lesson materials as well as to reinforce mandated curriculum guidelines. This lesson is intended to assist students in retaining valuable information and grasping difficult concepts addressed in texts.	6-8	7/12/07
Using the Four-Square Strategy to Define and Identify Poetic Terms	Through online research and follow-up discussion, students define four poetic terms using a four-square graphic organizer. They then locate and record examples of each term and apply their knowledge as they explore the poem "The Esquimos Have No Word for 'War'" by Mary Oliver.	6-8	8/2/07
Using THIEVES to Preview Nonfiction Texts	Students are taught how to "steal" information by critically previewing textbooks and other nonfiction texts. This strategy helps students better understand what they read by surveying specific elements identified by the acronym THIEVES: title, headings, introduction, every first sentence in a paragraph, visuals and vocabulary, end-of-chapter questions, and summary.	6-8	6/25/07
Using Word Webs to Teach Synonyms for Commonly Used Words	This lesson uses word webs to introduce synonyms for commonly used words such as good, bad, and nice, and to help students adjust their word usage for different contexts. The lesson was designed for second language learners but can be used with all students, even high school.	6-8	5/14/08
Viewing Vocabulary: Building Word Knowledge Through Informational Websites	This lesson encourages students to thoughtfully read a text to identify important words, discuss those words with peers, summarize the text, respond in a variety of ways, and read related texts to identify how those words are used in other contexts.	6-8	2/14/08
Viking Voyagers: Navigating Online Content Area Reading	This lesson supports middle school students' understanding of content area reading. Students access prior knowledge about Vikings, practice research and scanning skills, and investigate Viking culture on the Internet using graphic organizers to support their comprehension. Follow up includes a fun assessment tool called the Viking Quest.	6-8	2/12/09
Wading Through the Web: Teaching Internet Research Strategies	In this lesson, students view an interactive PowerPoint presentation that guides them through the process of research on the Internet. Students then discuss the various types of search engines, how to search for information on the Internet, and how to cite Internet sources.	6-8	1/23/08
Weaving the Threads: Integrating Poetry Annotation and Web Technology	This project engages students in meaningful research using poetry as a focal point. Students identify words and phrases in a poem by a Native American and in the process, learn about Native American culture and history. Students create a Web site using the poem as a "launching" space that takes readers into various explanations of words and phrases.	6-8	9/24/07
What Am I? Teaching Poetry through Riddles	Riddles have a long history dating to antiquity. Riddle poems, which rely upon creative use of metaphor, simile, and metonymy; concrete imagery; and imaginative presentation and description of an object or concept, are an excellent vehicle for introducing students to poetry and poetry writing.	6-8	3/20/06
When I Was Young In...A Literature to Language Experience	This lesson, which can be used with English-language learners (ELLs) and is also appropriate for students in third through fifth grades, provides practice with cultural sharing and using the past tense correctly in English. After reading When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant, students write and share memories of their own communities.	6-8	2/12/09
Writing a Flashback and Flash-Forward Story Using Movies and Texts as Models	Flashbacks and flash-forwards are common devices used in literature and films. Students will not only see examples of these devices through movies and stories, they will also create their own stories incorporating these literary devices.	6-8	6/10/09
Writing Alternative Plots for Robert C. O’Brien’s Z for Zachariah	The science fiction novel, Z for Zachariah, by Robert C. O’Brien is full of moral dilemmas. As a culminating activity for this novel, students write alternative endings for the novel based around the important decisions made by Ann Burden, the main character.	6-8	1/26/09
Writing Free Verse in the “Voice” of Cesar Chavez	After reading a story about an event in the life of Mexican-American labor activist Cesar Chavez, students write free verse poems in Chavez's "voice" based on the event.	6-8	2/12/09
You Can't Spell the Word Prefix Without a Prefix	Spelling is a form of word study or etymology. Through organized interaction, students explore the role of prefixes, as well as their origins and meanings, and examine how the understanding of prefixes can improve comprehension, decoding, and spelling.	6-8	2/12/09
You Know the Movie Is Coming—Now What?	Students and teachers often get excited when they hear that a movie version of a favorite book will soon be coming to theaters. What can be done in the classroom to prepare for a viewing of that film? In this lesson, students read a literary text with the eye of a director, selecting scenes from the text and putting a cinematic spin on them.	6-8	6/19/07
Young Adult Literature about the Middle East: A Cultural Response Perspective	Adapted from Sheryl L. Finkle and Tamara J. Lilly’s Middle Ground: Exploring Selected Literature from and about the Middle East, this variation on traditional literature circles exposes students to a variety of young adult fiction from and about the Middle East. Students read and share researcha and responses in collaborative groups. At the end of the lesson, they write a letter to welcome an immigrant student to their school and community.	6-8	3/9/09