Before seeing a film based on a book, classic or contemporary, children can learn about filmmaking and create their own scenes based on their favorite moments from the book.
Have You Seen the Movie Yet?
MyTube: Make a Video Public Service Announcement
Invite teens to explore issues that are important to them, and then write a script and film a video public service announcement.
Create a Career Blog
This activity invites children and teens to explore various careers and then write about what they might want to be when they grow up in a blog.
Music in Movies: You Pick the Soundtrack
Explore how music can have an emotional impact on a scene in a movie, then help teens write and film a scene of their own.
Writing Fanfiction
Writing stories that imitate a certain genre or type of fiction allows children to explore a book they love by imagining new twists for their favorite characters and plot lines.
Soundtrack for My Life
In this project, teens create autobiographies, adding music selections to their life stories.
Comic Book Show and Tell
This activity will help pairs or groups of teens explore a hands-on approach that lets them become both comic book writers and comic book artists.
Special Memories & Significant Moments: Making an Electronic Scrapbook
Using a variety of artifacts, mementos, and technologies, teens can create an electronic scrapbook of their most important moments in high school.
Personal Playlists: Ten Favorite Songs
Work with a teen to create a wiki with everything people should know about the teen's top ten favorite songs—and your favorite songs as well! Then invite friends to add their favorite songs too.
Speak Up! Writing a Review
This activity gives teens an opportunity to write reviews on the movies, television shows, music, restaurants, and books they love—and hate!
Bio-Graph: Graphing Life Events
Work with teens to learn about family members' significant personal experiences by interviewing them and sharing their stories with the rest of the family.
Children's Book Project
This activity can help teens create picture books that a teen caregiver can then share with children.
Explore Your Reading Self
In this activity teens are encouraged to explore their reading history as they remember books they liked reading as children and then revisit these old favorites.
Blog About Courage Using Photos
Engage teens in this activity in which they use photographs to examine and write about courage on a blog.
Developing Critical Consciousness through Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give
As part of their study of the YA novel The Hate U Give, students learn about the Black Lives Matter movement and in small groups conduct/share research about social issues key to the plot, characters, and themes of the book. They then read and discuss nonfiction excerpts by James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates before synthesizing their understanding of all the texts under study through a communal idea poster and an individual synthesis and reflection project.
Analyzing the Rhetoric of Corporate Logos across Time
Students think critically about how design elements in logos work together to tell a changing story about a company or product in this visual rhetoric lesson.
Comparing William Carlos Williams's Poetry with Cubist Paintings
Through discussion, drawing, and writing, students compare how William Carlos Williams's poetry and Cubist and Precisionist painting employ similar artistic strategies, enhancing their understanding of both kinds of text.
Developing Citizenship Through Rhetorical Analysis
Students analyze rhetorical strategies in online editorials, building knowledge of strategies and awareness of local and national issues. This lesson teaches students connections between subject, writer, and audience and how rhetorical strategies are used in everyday writing.
Reading Shakespeare's The Tempest through a Postcolonial Lens
Students take a postcolonial perspective on the portrayal of Caliban from Shakespeare's The Tempest by comparing it to a modern adaptation of the play.
Vocabulary Solutions: A Mixture of Science, Conversation, and Writing
In this lesson, students conduct a science experiment and later discuss the events of the lab during shared writing. Students explain the procedure in their own words and then revise to include content specific vocabulary. Finally, students reflect on new words added to their writing using the Trading Card Creator interactive.