Students use social networking sites to trace the development of characters by assuming the persona of a character on the class Ning and sending a set number of tweets, or status updates.
Using Microblogging and Social Networking to Explore Characterization and Style
If a Body Texts a Body: Texting in The Catcher in the Rye
Students imagine the possibilities afforded by text messaging technology in The Catcher in the Rye; They compare and contrast major forms of communication, select points in the novel to represent with text messages, and share and discuss their creative work.
Creating Better Presentation Slides through Glance Media and Billboard Design
This lesson introduces the concept of "glance media" through an analysis of billboards. Students apply design concepts by creating a slide presentation to accompany an existing historical speech.
Persuasive Techniques in Advertising
Students will be introduced to persuasive techniques used in advertising, analyze advertising, and explore the concepts of demographics, marketing for a specific audience, and dynamic advertising.
A "Brief, Urgent Message": Theme in Slaughterhouse-Five
As a culminating activity for Slaughterhouse-Five, students make a compilation album (a CD with 6-8 tracks) that reflects their analysis, understanding, and reaction to the ideas in the novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
Tragic Love: Introducing Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
This lesson introduces students to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet by having them examine the ideas of tragedy and tragic love by connecting the story to their own lives.
Language and Power in The Handmaid's Tale and the World
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.
Speaking Poetry: Exploring Sonic Patterns Through Performance
Using their voices as interpretive instruments, students gain a deeper appreciation of the art of poetry as they prepare a recitation of the frequently anthologized poem "Those Winter Sundays."
Sonic Patterns: Exploring Poetic Techniques Through Close Reading
Students develop close reading skills connecting sound with sense in the poem "Those Winter Sundays," and write an original text that reflects their new learning.
Narrative Structure and Perspectives in Toni Morrison's Beloved
Using Beloved as a model of a work with multiple narrative perspectives, students use a visualizing activity and close reading to consider ways in which subjective values shape contradictory representations.
There Are No Small Parts: Minor Characters in David Copperfield
This lesson capitalizes on students' interest in social networking by asking students to build an online profile for a minor character in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield.
Joining the Conversation about Young Adult Literature
Students create a persuasive case calling for the adoption of a particular young adult literature title into their school's language arts curriculum by writing letters or speeches.
Preparing for the Journey: An Introduction to the Hero Myth
Students read a variety of picture books that contain elements of the hero's journey and use an online interactive tool to analyze the stories.
Looking for the Byronic Hero Using Twilight's Edward Cullen
Using the character of Edward Cullen from the Twilight series, this lesson introduces the Byronic hero and asks students to compare the Byronic hero to the traditional hero and villain.
"America the Beautiful": Using Music and Art to Develop Vocabulary
Students engage in a rich study of vocabulary words from the song "America the Beautiful," using music and art.
Blurring Genre: Exploring Fiction and Nonfiction with Diary of a Worm
After reading several examples of how a published author incorporates facts in fiction writing, students research a topic of their choice and write fictional diary entries that incorporate factual information.
Literacy Centers: Getting Started
This lesson gives teachers resources and guidance to create reading, listening, computer, and poetry Literacy Centers in their own classrooms.
Building Vocabulary: Making Multigenre Glossaries Based on Student Inquiry
Students choose unfamiliar words from their reading and create a multigenre, multimodal glossary of terms.
An Exploration of Romanticism Through Art and Poetry
Students use art and poetry to explore and understand major characteristics of the Romantic period.
Grocery Store Scavenger Hunt: Researching Nutrition to Advertise for Health
After researching nutrition and analyzing food advertisements, students work in cooperative groups to create their own advertisements for food products.