The Stapleless Book is designed to allow users to create with ease an eight-page book simply by folding and cutting. No tape or staples are required. Students and teachers alike can use the stapleless book for taking notes while reading, making picture books, collecting facts, or creating vocabulary booklets. Students can choose from seven different layouts for the pages of their books (shown left).

The tool is easy to use, made even easier with the Stapleless Book Planning Sheet, a printable PDF that book creators can use to draft and revise their work before creating and printing their final stapleless books. View the video demonstration for the Stapleless Book to see how to fold and cut the printout. For additional ideas on how to use this tool, see Tips for Using Stapleless Book.

Visit this interactive tool at: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/stapleless/.

ReadWriteThink Lessons That Use This Tool

A Getting-Acquainted Activity Using My Teacher’s Secret Life (K-2)
The first days of school are filled with excitement and uncertainty. Here, in this kindergarten lesson, is a creative way for students to become familiar with the teacher and each other. The students will listen to Stephen Krensky's My Teacher's Secret Life, discuss the content, and make predictions about what everyone does when they are away from school.

Alaska Native Stories: Using Narrative to Introduce Expository Text (3-5)
This lesson introduces students to comparing and contrasting fiction and nonfiction texts, and provides integration of literature into content area instruction. Students listen to a Yu'pik tale told by a Native person living in Alaska, reflect on it, and then use expository text to find facts about an animal in the Arctic.

BioBags: Linking Literature and Life (3-5)
In this lesson, which is also appropriate for older students, each student creates a BioBag, a collection of texts that mark special times in his or her life. BioBags provide a unique way for students to share memorable events—and a variety of texts—with one another.

Blending Fiction and Nonfiction to Improve Comprehension and Writing Skills (3-5)
This innovative writing lesson integrates fiction and nonfiction to create a blended genre that improves students' critical comprehension and writing skills. Students learn about a content area topic through a text set and Internet research, then blend elements of fiction and nonfiction to create an original piece that demonstrates new knowledge.

Book Buddy Biographies: Intermediate and Primary Students Working Together (K-2)
The success of a year-long Book Buddy program hinges on those first few days at the beginning of the year. As intermediate and primary students are first introduced, they have the opportunity to get to know each other on a more personal level by creating personalized biographies by interviewing each other, recording responses, putting the information into book format, and illustrating their books.

Book Report Alternative: Creating a Childhood for a Character (6-8)
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.

Book Report Alternative: The Elements of Fiction (3-5)
This versatile lesson encourages students to read a fiction book of their choice, analyze what they have read, write and illustrate an alternative book report identifying key elements of fiction, and share their stapleless book with other students in either pairs or small groups.

Composing Cinquain Poems with Basic Parts of Speech (3-5)
Cinquain (pronounced "cin-kain") is a five-line form, using a wavelike syllable count of two-four-six-eight-two. In this lesson, students learn about cinquain and write simple cinquain of their own.

Composing Cinquain Poems: A Quick-Writing Activity (K-2)
Cinquain (pronounced "cin-kain") is a five-line poetic form, using a wavelike syllable count of two-four-six-eight-two. In this lesson, students write simple cinquain of their own as a follow-up to a subject they have been exploring in class (for instance, units on animals, community, rainforest, or on a particular picture book, such as Amazing Grace).

Dr. Seuss’s Sound Words: Playing with Phonics and Spelling (K-2)
Boom! Br-r-ring! Cluck! Moo!—you are bound to find exciting sounds everywhere. Whether you visit online sites that play sounds or take a sound hike, ask your students to notice the sounds they hear then write their own poems, using sound words, based on Dr. Seuss's Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You?

Draw a Math Story: From the Concrete to the Symbolic (K-2)
When students draw first, write second, and then use equations to symbolize their stories, they start from the concrete and move to the symbolic, helping to improve reading comprehension as well as mathematical understanding. Students' higher-level thinking skills are developed by comparing, sequencing, writing and drawing to support their reading, and using symbols to represent meaning.

Exploring Sets through Math-Related Book Pairs (K-2)
After reading and discussing a book pair of two math-related books, students investigate their home and school environments to find examples of objects that come in sets of twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes. Working either collaboratively or individually, students then create their own books on sets, highlighting their inquiry study.

Exploring the Power of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Words through Diamante Poetry (9-12)
Encourage your students to explore the ways that powerful and passionate words communicate the concepts of freedom, justice, discrimination, and the American Dream in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech by paying attention to the details of King's speech as they read and as they gather words to use in their own original poems.

Exploring the Subtext Strategy: Thinking Beyond the Text (3-5)
This lesson, recommended for grades 2–4, allows students to explore the feelings, motivations, and thoughts of the characters in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Students use the illustrations in the story to interpret the characters' thoughts and then act out their subtext.

Family Ties: Making Connections to Improve Reading Comprehension (K-2)
Build a connection! The strategy of making connections can improve reading comprehension. Students listen to three realistic picture books, Bigmama’s by Donald Crews, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, and The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant, and make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.

Guided Comprehension: Monitoring Using the INSERT Technique (3-5)
This lesson uses the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen to introduce the comprehension strategy of monitoring using the INSERT technique. The lesson teaches students how to monitor their understanding and thought processes to gain a better understanding of texts.

How Does My Garden Grow? Writing in Science Field Journals (K-2)
While scientists are working, they often keep journals to document observations, gather information, sketch pictures, write down questions, form a hypothesis, and record reactions. In this lesson plan, students will be keeping their own science field journal as a log of a classroom gardening project.

Improve Comprehension Using a Word Card Game With Root Words and Affixes (6-8)
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.

It’s My Life: Multimodal Autobiography Project (9-12)
This lesson allows students to express themselves verbally, visually, and musically by creating multimodal autobiographies. Students benefit from the open exchange of ideas with other students and share important events in their lives through a PowerPoint presentation.

Junie B. Jones Introduces Literacy Mystery Boxes (K-2)
This read-aloud lesson, using Junie B., First Grader (at last!) by Barbara Park, invites students to discuss the story with their classmates, record key events, make personal connections, and create literacy mystery boxes to aid in retelling the story.

Learning to Learn with Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster (3-5)
After reading the picture book Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster, students explore vocabulary from a recent unit and create their own vocabulary parade, modeled on the activities in the text. The activity provides a great alternative to testing students on information from a recent unit.

Let it Grow: An Inquiry-Based Organic Gardening Research Project (6-8)
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.

Let's Read It Again: Comprehension Strategies for English-Language Learners (K-2)
This adaptable lesson for Spanish-speaking second graders learning English uses a bilingual picture book and a variety of reading strategies to help students improve fluency and retain what they have learned.

Literature as a Jumping Off Point for Nonfiction Inquiry  (3-5)
Text sets focus on one topic or subject area, yet include texts of many genres. In this lesson, after reading a novel, here Tuck Everlasting, students choose a topic related to a theme in the novel and work cooperatively to learn more about that topic using a text set. Students will have an opportunity to read and explore many genres, while learning through the content areas.

Making Personal and Cultural Connections Using A Girl Named Disaster (6-8)
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.

Our Classroom: Writing an Owner’s Manual (3-5)
The first few weeks of school are all about creating rules, establishing routines, and becoming familiar with the classroom. Engaging students in activities that help them get to know their classroom can make the transition easier while at the same time providing students with a sense of ownership. In this lesson, students write an owner’s manual to help them become more familiar with their classroom as well as to let others know about their classroom.

Prompting Revision through Modeling and Written Conversations  (3-5)
Students create a checklist outlining what effective writers do after watching online videos of authors Kate DiCamillo and Debra Frasier revise their own work.  The teacher then models how to revise his or her own writing using this checklist, and the students read their peers’ work and engage in a written conversation to help one another with the revision process.

Reading Everywhere with Dr. Seuss (K-2)
Using Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham as a model, students create a book and a PowerPoint or HyperStudio slide show to help them see all the wonderful places they can read. Where do you like to read? By the pool? At school? In a car? Beneath a star? Here? There? Everywhere!

Rooting out Meaning: Morpheme Match-Ups in the Primary Grades (3-5)
By using word-building cards, an online dictionary, and group activities, students determine the meaning of unfamiliar words and increase their understanding of morphemes.

Shhh! Bear's Sleeping: Learning About Nonfiction and Fiction Using Read-Alouds (K-2)
In this lesson, interactive read-alouds introduce students in grades K–2 to the concept of fiction and nonfiction using the hibernation of bears as a topic. A variety of books and poems engage students who actively participate through songs and finger play. Students then write a class book.

Spelling Cheerleading: Integrating Movement and Spelling Generalizations (3-5)
This lesson teaches the y spelling rule for adding suffixes and reinforces the rule using a multi-sensory approach called "spelling cheerleading." Students learn kinesthetic movements based on the formations of letters and "cheer" the new words.

Spelling Patterns “Go Fish” Card Game (6-8)
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.

Stop Signs, McDonald’s, and Cheerios: Writing With Environmental Print (K-2)
Purposeful instruction with high-profile text can serve as a springboard for literacy instruction. This lesson encourages early readers to look beyond the color and context clues of environmental print to identify individual letters, to read words, and to write them.

Teaching Point of View With Two Bad Ants (3-5)
In this lesson, students use clues from the illustrations and the text of Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg to compare the point of view of an ant with that of a person.

Teaching Voice with Anthony Browne’s Voices in the Park  (6-8)
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.

Telling a Story About Me: Young Children Write Autobiographies (K-2)
Drawing inspiration from personal photographs, students write and publish autobiographies to share with the class and their families. First and second graders practice sentence composition, writing, and group work.

Using a Predictable Text to Teach High-Frequency Words (K-2)
This lesson uses a predictable text (Have You Seen My Cat? by Eric Carle) to help students learn high-frequency words. After reading the story, students form their own sentences using words from the text.

Using the Check and Line Method to Enhance Reading Comprehension (6-8)
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.

What Am I? Teaching Poetry through Riddles (6-8)
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.

You Know the Movie Is Coming—Now What? (6-8)
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.