Students may generate clear, well-formatted Venn Diagrams by naming their project and labeling Circle 1 and Circle 2, then generating concepts that can be placed on the diagram by clicking and dragging them with the mouse. Students may place the concepts in either circle or in the overlapping area, allowing them to organize their information logically. A step-by-step animated demo shows students how to type concepts and their descriptions, and how to drag and place concepts on their diagrams. Students may view and edit their draft diagrams, then print the finished diagrams for reference. This is a handy tool for classroom use that guides students through the process of organizing information in Venn diagram form.

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

ReadWriteThink Lessons That Use This Tool

A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry (K-2)
Using familiar childhood stories, students will work together to create a poem that is “found” in the language presented in the picture books they read. Children will look in texts for writing that inspires them—looking for favorite words, phrases, and sentences. Working together, students will combine their words and phrases to create a class poem. When complete, the new piece will be shared as performance poetry.

All’s Well that Sells Well: A Creative Introduction to Shakespeare (9-12)
This pre-reading activity for Romeo and Juliet or any other play by William Shakespeare compares attending a performance at The Globe Theater to viewing a play on Broadway or seeing a movie at a local theater. It invokes critical inquiry and promotes engagement as students complete a project that contrasts life in the 1600s with products and conveniences available today.

Analyzing and Comparing Medieval and Modern Ballads (9-12)
Invite students to explore the genre of ballads by reading medieval ballads to deduce their characteristics, acting out the ballads, comparing the medieval and modern ballads using Venn diagrams, and ultimately composing their own ballads.

Artistic Elements: Exploring Art Through Descriptive Writing (3-5)
In this lesson, students become engaged in the studies of both art and written language, as they create descriptive writing pieces in which adjectives are used to describe the artistic elements present within a work.

Battling for Liberty: Tecumseh’s and Patrick Henry’s Language of Resistance (6-8)
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.

Behind the Scenes With Cinderella (3-5)
This lesson invites students to explore two different versions of Cinderella and to make connections between story background elements (e.g., setting) and cross-curricular topics (e.g., geography and science). Students use literature and the Internet to research and create a variety of language arts activities to showcase their knowledge.

Book Sorting: Using Observation and Comprehension to Categorize Books  (K-2)
This sorting lesson supports the development of critical-thinking and vocabulary skills through observation and discussion of text illustrations and content. With the whole group and then in pairs, students sort books into three or more groups using their own criteria, then explain in writing how they sorted the books.

Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues (6-8)
Students are invited to confront and discuss issues of injustice and intolerance reading a variety of texts, from Young Adult literature to picture books.

Building a Matrix for Leo Lionni Books: An Author Study (K-2)
In this author study, students listen to four books by Leo Lionni and discuss the literary elements of each story. With each new read-aloud story, students identify similarities and differences in the stories and work in groups to add illustrated information to a story matrix. Finally, students compare two stories of their choice.

Child Labor: Giving Voice to Child Laborers Through Monologues (6-8)
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.

Combining Read-Alouds With Economics in the Primary Grades (K-2)
This lesson combines the benefits of reading aloud to children with exposure to economic concepts. After hearing two storybooks read aloud, students compare them and discuss the economic terms natural resource and producer. This lesson also helps students relate stories to the world around them.

Compare and Contrast Electronic Text With Traditionally Printed Text (6-8)
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.

Comparing and Contrasting: Picturing an Organizational Pattern (6-8)
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.

Comparing Fiction and Nonfiction with Little Red Riding Hood Text Sets (K-2)
Beginning with a comparative study of retellings of “Little Red Riding Hood” and modern revisions of the folktale, this literature unit continues with a study of fantasy, realistic fiction, and nonfiction texts. As students explore various depictions of wolves, they gain another perspective of the “villain” in the traditional tale.

Critical Literacy: Point of View (6-8)
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.

Critical Literacy: Women in 19th-Century Literature (9-12)
Thoughtful exploration of two short 19th-century texts introduces questions of critical literacy: What is the position of the writer and what is the intended audience for a literary work?

Cultural Connections and Writing for Change (3-5)
While reading a story set in Palestine, students “meet” an Arab family, analyze book illustrations, and note cultural contrasts. They then collaborate to identify a social issue of concern and take action by writing and mailing a letter to an appropriate official.

Decoding The Matrix: Exploring Dystopian Characteristics through Film (9-12)
This lesson uses film clips from The Matrix and other dystopian movies to introduce students to the characteristics found in dystopian works, such as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984.

Descriptive Video: Using Media Technology to Enhance Writing (3-5)
Grab a pencil, turn on a movie, and introduce your students to a new technology! Descriptive Video can build vocabulary and enhance descriptive writing. During this lesson, students watch a described segment of The Lion King and write an enhanced description.


Diagram It! Identifying, Comparing, and Writing About Nonfiction Texts (K-2)
This lesson introduces second-grade students to nonfiction by focusing on the differences between fiction and nonfiction and by looking at distinctions among three types of nonfiction. Students create Venn diagrams to categorize the types of nonfiction and compare their characteristics.

Examining Plot Conflict through a Comparison/Contrast Essay  (3-5)
This lesson invites students to identify types of plot conflict in literature. Using excerpts from picture books, as well as graphic organizers, students learn to identify plot conflict as well as the ways that the plot develops in relationship to the conflict. The lesson culminates with a comparison/contrast writing activity.

Exploring Compare and Contrast Structure in Expository Texts (3-5)
Students explore the concept of compare and contrast using expository texts. They learn clue words that signal a compare and contrast structure and how to use Venn diagrams for note-taking and representing new information learned from texts.

Exploring Cross-Age Tutoring Activities With Lewis and Clark (9-12)
In this lesson, cross-age tutoring is a catalyst for interaction between high school and elementary students as they explore the journey of Lewis and Clark. Using the book How We Crossed the West and online interactive activities, students synthesize knowledge from collaborative sessions to write and share adventure stories.

Exploring Language and Identity: Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Beyond (9-12)
The interrelationship of language, identity, and power opens up discussions that are important to both the individual and the larger community. By exploring the relationship between language and identity in Amy Tan’s essay, students increase their awareness of language in their family, home, peer, and work communities. Students explore fiction and nonfiction texts and write literacy narratives as a part of their exploration.

Family Message Journals Teach Many Purposes for Writing (K-2)
Family Message Journals are tools for learning, thinking, and self-expression. By writing several messages with varied purposes, students begin to experience that journal writing can serve many purposes—it can help them remember; make sense of new information and ideas; and recognize, develop, and share personal thoughts and reactions.

Finding Common Ground: Using Logical, Audience-Specific Arguments (9-12)
Using a hypothetical situation, students generate arguments from opposing points of view, discover areas of commonality through the use of Venn diagrams, and construct logical, audience-specific arguments in order to persuade their opponents. Students also have an opportunity to role-play with classmates in order to refine their arguments.

Flying to Freedom: Tar Beach and The People Could Fly (3-5)
Reading with an awareness of intertextuality helps students respond in a dynamic manner to multicultural literature. Students explore themes of liberation and racism as they examine the connections, as well as the disjunctions, between two award-winning children's books.

Freedom of Speech and Automatic Language: Examining the Pledge of Allegiance (9-12)
Most students in American classrooms know the words to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. The words are a kind of automatic language. We say them easily—perhaps every day, but we may not think in detail about what we are saying. This lesson plan asks students to explore this rote learning and their own right to freedom of speech by examining the Pledge of Allegiance from a historical and personal perspective and in relationship to fictional situations in novels they have read.

From Fact to Fiction: Drawing and Writing Stories (K-2)
Involving students in drawing activities prior to writing helps them to visualize what they want to express in their writing. Drawing before writing makes writing an easier process. In this lesson, students learn story elements, use graphic organizers, and access the Internet to gather factual information about frogs and toads.

From Little House to My House: Exploring History and Family Roles (K-2)
This lesson introduces first- and second-grade students to the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, using a story adapted from Little House in the Big Woods. A read-aloud followed by questions helps students explore the book. Students then use a graphic organizer to connect the characters and events to their own lives.

Get the Reel Scoop: Comparing Books to Movies (3-5)
In today’s culture, students have many opportunities to view movies based upon literature. Instead of assuming that students will watch the movie rather than reading the book, take advantage of the phenomenon by asking students to compare and contrast books with their movie counterparts and then work in groups to design a readers theater response to the film version.

Grocery Store Scavenger Hunt: Researching Nutrition to Advertise for Health (6-8)
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.

Guided Comprehension: Evaluating Using the Meeting of the Minds Technique (3-5)
This lesson uses the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen to introduce the comprehension strategy of evaluating using the meeting of the minds technique. Students read The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and learn how to evaluate and debate information from texts.

Guided Comprehension: Knowing How Words Work Using Semantic Feature Analysis (3-5)
This lesson uses the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen to introduce the comprehension strategy of knowing how words work using semantic feature analysis. The lesson teaches students how to analyze the characteristics of folktales, myths, and fables to gain a better understanding of these genres.

Guided Comprehension: Making Connections Using a Double-Entry Journal (3-5)
This lesson uses the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen to introduce the comprehension strategy of making connections using a double-entry journal. Students use the book Harvesting Hope by Kathleen Krull to make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.

Having My Say: A Multigenre Autobiography Project (9-12)
Students will read Having Our Say, the autobiography of two African-American women who lived through most of the twentieth century.  Using this text as a model, students will produce a multigenre project that includes an autobiographical essay and an informational piece that provides historical, familial, or cultural context for their story.

He Said/She Said: Analyzing Gender Roles through Dialogue (6-8)
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.

Heroes Are Made of This: Studying the Character of Heroes (9-12)
Using a variety of individual and group activities, students will analyze the complex ways in which authors use characterization to present and explore heroism and the heroic.

Imagine That! Playing with Genre through Newspapers and Short Stories (6-8)
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.

Improving Fluency through Group Literary Performance (K-2)
Repeated readings and literary performances help students with their reading accuracy, expression, and rate. In this lesson, students participate in shared reading, choral reading, and readers theater, focusing their exploration on picture books by Bill Martin, Jr.

Introducing the Venn Diagram in the Kindergarten Classroom  (K-2)
Graphic organizers are valuable learning tools, but can a Venn diagram be used by kindergarten kids? Yes, if you make it hands-on and user-friendly! In this lesson, students use hula hoops and real objects, as well as online interactives, as they use Venn diagrams to problem solve, explore, and record information to share with others.

Investigating Animals: Using Nonfiction for Inquiry-based Research (K-2)
Students document their discoveries as they explore nonfiction, informational texts to investigate favorite animals. The lesson includes whole-group explorations and paired experiences between kindergarten students and upper-grade students.

Investigating Junk Mail: Negotiating Critical Literacy at the Mailbox (3-5)
By investigating junk mail, students learn to think about and question texts in ways that develop their analytical capacities and critical reading practices.

Is Superman Really All That Super? Critically Exploring Superheroes (3-5)
This lesson teaches fourth- and fifth-grade students how to critically analyze superhero characters portrayed in popular culture texts and children’s books. Students identify, compare, and discuss the character traits of superheroes, looking at how perspective or point of view influences their understanding of these characters.

Language and Power in The Handmaid’s Tale and the World (9-12)
Students work in small groups to examine Margaret Atwood’s use of and observations about language in The Handmaid’s Tale.  Through this activity, students discover and articulate overarching thematic trends in the book and then can extend their observations about official or political language to examples from their own world.

Letter Poems Deliver: Experimenting with Line Breaks in Poetry Writing (3-5)
Letter poems make poetry accessible, meaningful, and fun. Letter poems are also an apt medium for exploring a defining characteristic of poetry—line breaks. Students explore letter poems and experiment with writing letters as poems, using the placement of line breaks to enhance rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance.

Letters and Learning Genre (6-8)
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.

Lights, Camera, Action...Music: Critiquing Films Using Sight and Sound (9-12)
Teaching students to "read" media other than text is an important skill that helps boost their critical thinking. This lesson introduces students to film literacy by asking them to contrast a scene's visual impact with the music that accompanies it and by then writing their own scene outline.

Literary Parodies: Exploring a Writer’s Style through Imitation (9-12)
The popular saying “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” coined by Charles Caleb Colton, is the basis for this lesson, which asks students to analyze the features of a poet’s work then create their own poems based on the original model. By exploring sample poems and their parodies, students focus on the language and style of the original writer, all in the process of playing with poetry.

Literature as a Catalyst for Social Action: Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges (3-5)
Students are invited to confront and discuss issues of injustice and intolerance reading a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts.

Looking for the Byronic Hero Using Twilight's Edward Cullen (9-12)
Using the character of Edward Cullen from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer as an example, this lesson introduces the Byronic hero and allows students to make comparisons between the Byronic hero and definitions of the traditional hero and villain.  Students then apply the definition to a character of their choice and extend their learning with a choice of projects.

Looking for the History in Historical Fiction: An Epidemic for Reading (3-5)
Historical fiction can provide a powerful way to introduce your students to the large themes of history because of their human approach to the events they cover. In this lesson, students will be reading and responding to historical fiction. Then, they will be using nonfiction sources to verify the “facts” presented in the novels.

Magazine Redux: An Exercise in Critical Literacy (9-12)
Teachers can use this activity as part of a larger unit on media literacy to help students understand how and why they read and respond to different media forms. This lesson focuses specifically on analyzing the differences between print and online magazines.

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.

Modeling Reading and Analysis Processes with the Works of Edgar Allan Poe (6-8)
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.

Moving Toward Acceptance Through Picture Books and Two-Voice Texts (3-5)
Using provocative picture books, Whoever You Are by Mem Fox, by Weslandia Paul Fleischman, and Insects Are My Life by Megan McDonald, students discuss diversity in literature and in their school. Students then study, create, and perform two-voice texts that try to solve the problem of intolerance and move toward acceptance.

My Life/Your Life: A Look at Your Parents’ Past (6-8)
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.

Naming in a Digital World: Creating a Safe Persona on the Internet (9-12)
To introduce the connotations attached to names, this lesson begins by asking students to explore the origin of their first, middle, and last names. After considering the ways that people in various situations react to names, explore naming conventions in digital and non-digital settings then choose and explain specific names and profiles to represent themselves online.

Once Upon a Time Rethought: Writing Fractured Fairy Tales (3-5)
Using prior knowledge of the genre, students identify common elements of fairy tales. Next, they read and analyze fairy tales, using a story map. The information from the graphic organizer will assist students as they rewrite one of their favorite fairy tales, changing one of the literary elements.

Packing the Pilgrim’s Trunk: Personalizing History in the Elementary Classroom (K-2)
How can young students relate to historical events? How can they make connections to the past? The purpose of this theme is to help primary students form connections between their own lives and the lives of the Pilgrims—making history relevant.

Reading and Analyzing Multigenre Texts (6-8)
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.

Shape Poems: Writing Extraordinary Poems About Ordinary Objects (3-5)
In this lesson, students learn the characteristics and format of shape poems and write their own shape poems using an online interactive activity.

Supporting Vocabulary Development with EASE (6-8)
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.

Teaching Language Skills Using the Phone Book (3-5)
What literacy skills are needed to use a phone book? Through multiple activities built around an everyday text, students will not only learn how the book is arranged, but what the contents are and also how it is used. In the process, students will be using their research and organizational skills to build their own class phone book.

Teaching the Epic through Ghost Stories (9-12)
Our oral tradition of telling ghost stories, with which most students are familiar, builds a useful bridge to the oral tradition of the ancient epic narrators. In this lesson, students connect to epic storytellers by sharing their own oral tales of ghosts and goblins and monsters.

Tell and Show: Writing With Words and Video (6-8)
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.

The Correspondence Project: A Lesson of Letters (9-12)
After exploring business and friendly letter formats, students write letters for various audiences and real-world purposes.

The Importance of Titles: From Big Blank Space to Small Good Thing (9-12)
Just as characters’ names reveal much about their identities, so too do titles give us clues to a story’s “identity.” This lesson, focusing on two sets of stories “renamed” by Raymond Carver, allows students to develop an appreciation of the importance of titles.

Thrills and Chills! Using Scary Stories to Motivate Students to Read (6-8)
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.

Using Personal Connections to Build an Understanding of Emotions (K-2)
In this lesson, students concretely define the abstract concept of emotions by using their own facial expressions as models, creating happy and sad masks, and discussing their personal experiences. The lesson is appropriate for prekindergarten through first-grade students.

Using Pictures to Build Schema for Social Studies Content (3-5)
Student groups analyze images of the Boston Massacre. They study Paul Revere’s engraving of the massacre and compare it to the other images. This activity leads to a discussion on propaganda. Students demonstrate understanding of the Boston Massacre and propaganda through poetry writing, artwork, expository writing, and oral presentations.

Using Writing and Role-Play to Engage the Reluctant Writer (3-5)
In this lesson, students use dramatic role-play to further engage their literacy skills. By exploring the characters in a story and writing in role, students use creative means to support their learning and understanding of the writing process.

Wading Through the Web: Teaching Internet Research Strategies (6-8)
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.

What’s the Difference? Beginning Writers Compare E-mail with Letter Writing (K-2)
E-mail is increasingly popular among beginning writers who find electronic communication highly engaging. Educators also consider e-mail a powerful medium for literacy learning, but e-mail style and conventions differ from traditional writing. Students explore the differences between e-mail and letter writing and experiment with their own messages.

When Less IS More—Understanding Minimalist Fiction (9-12)
Minimalist fiction, considered the fiction of the 1970s and still popular today, is highly accessible to high school students of all levels. An understanding of this style and its connection to one of the most significant writers in the American literature curriculum–Ernest Hemingway–sparks new interest in literature.

Write-Talks: Students Discovering Real Writers, Real Audiences, Real Purposes (3-5)
This lesson introduces students to a wide world of writing by inviting people into the classroom to talk about what, why, and how they write in their day-to-day lives. Students then reflect on how these varying purposes and processes can apply to their own lives.