Students brainstorm the possible meaning of the title The Scarlet Letter and what its significance might be. The class' responses are returned to once the reading has begun to see how their definitions have changed.
The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850.
Poet Robert Frost was born in 1874.
Students celebrate Frost's birthday by exploring his innovation in the sonnet form by studying poems and presenting them to the class.
Today is Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko's birthday.
Students revive elements of the oral tradition by writing about something funny that happened to them recently, sharing with classmates, and discussing the changes that occur during the retelling of the stories.
Author Gabriel García Márquez was born on this day.
Students take place in a collaborative creative writing activity to begin to understand the hallmarks of the literary style known as magical realism.
Beware the Ides of March!
Students discuss and categorize superstitions, define a superstition, and compare the similarities and difference between proverbs and superstitions.
On this date in 1901, Andrew Carnegie gave $5.2 million to New York City libraries.
Students write expository and persuasive pieces with the help of the Persuasion Map and Essay Map interactives, and compare the essential features of the two modes of writing.
Coretta Scott King was born on this day in 1927.
Students do a book report assignment based on a current or past winner of the Coretta Scott King Book Award.
Avi was born in 1937.
After reading Nothing But the Truth, students explore a current event topic and write their own short work of fiction in a similar multigenre format.
David Macaulay was born in 1946.
Students use the Multigenre Mapper interactive to explore Macaulay's use of multiple genres by composing original multigenre texts.
Celebrate National Family Literacy Day!
Parents, grandparents, and other family members are invited to the classroom for a family-school reading day.
Faith Ringgold was born on October 8, 1930.
Students use Ringgold's books as a springboard for a discussion of race, gender, and civil rights, and then write and illustrate original picture books on these topics.
Celebrate Kate DiCamillo's birthday today.
After examining the characters in one of DiCamillo's stories, students write original short stories featuring animals as central characters.
Randolph Caldecott was born on March 22, 1846.
Students explore the history of the Caldecott Medal and create a classroom literary award modeled after the Caldecott.
Author Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944.
After students read the novel The Color Purple, dialect is discussed and students write a short piece of fiction or poetry using the dialect of their peer group.
Celebrate Children's Authors and Illustrators Week
Students "step into the shoes" of their favorite author by reading several of their books, conducting research, and preparing displays and presentations for the class.
Get ready to go back to school!
Students share details about their lives with one another using the interactive Graphic Map and share their memories in small groups or with the whole class.
Karen Hesse, author of the Newbery-winning verse novel Out of the Dust, was born in 1952.
Students write original short works of historical fiction in verse format, modeling the style Hesse used to write Out of the Dust.
Caldecott-winning illustrator Lane Smith was born in 1959.
Students discuss some of the ways in which illustrations can enhance a story and then become illustrators, using a variety of media.
Science-fiction author Ray Bradbury was born in 1920.
Students do a Bradbury author study and then create flyers to advertise their favorite story using the ReadWriteThink Printing Press.
Walter Dean Myers, author of the Printz Award-winning novel Monster, was born in 1937.
Students discuss how the form of a film script affects the story, why the author may have selected this writing style, and write a story using a similar format.