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In Slaughterhouse-Five, author Kurt Vonnegut describes Tralfamadorian literature as "brief, urgent message[s]—describing a situation, a scene"; when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep" (111-112). Students use this literary perspective to analyze passages from Slaughterhouse-Five and then apply that perspective by creating a compilation album, CD cover, and liner notes that demonstrate their interpretation, understanding, and evaluation of the themes and ideas in the novel.

Students will analyze art and identify time, place, and mood.  They will sketch a setting from a familiar story.  They will use light, medium, and dark values to create a watercolor wash.  Assessment rubric, letter to parents, examples of artwork, and lesson plan included in PDF.  

Do you speak Elvish? How about Klingon? Learn about the history of constructed language in literature in this video from It’s Lit! Tolkien is widely regarded as the most influential author of the fantasy genre… period. But one of the less-discussed aspects of his work is the way Tolkien used constructed language in his writing. Nowadays authors are constantly making up words and languages for the worlds they build, but Tolkien was unique in that he constructed languages first, and then created worlds so his fictional languages would have somewhere to live. Support materials include discussion questions, a “construct your own language” activity, and resources on how to learn Elvish.

Students will examine sentence structure and context to create a language. Students will also examine how Tolkien's cultural perspective influenced the languages he created.

There are many back to school activities that take place to help create a classroom community. It is important for students to feel that they own the space and the learning that takes place in their classroom. Foster such ownership for students by collaboratively writing an owner's manual that describes the classroom's areas and procedures. Students begin by sharing thoughts and feelings about school so far and brainstorming a list of important classroom places, routines, and events. Next, they select an item from the brainstormed list and write a draft description of how their topic “works” in the classroom and after peer-review, make appropriate revisions. Then students use interactive tools to create their piece of the classroom owner's manual. Finally, students share their work and decide as a class how to share the information with others, such as an Open House or when new students join the classroom.

Students will listen to each selection from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns. They will identify the tempo and dynamics. They will move to the music and draw a picture of each animal.  They will identify their favorite piece and write a sentence about it.  

Present progressives describe an action in progress, or something that started in the past and is still happening. It is formed with the helping "to be" verb in the present tense and the present participle of the verb.

This resource allows students to practice identifying present progressives.

How does the story connect to your own life, another text you have read, or the world around you? In this lesson, students will make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections after reading In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. Students gain a deeper understanding of a text when they make authentic connections. After reading the novel, the instructor introduces and models the strategy of making connections.  After sharing and discussing connections, students choose and plan a project that makes a personal connection to the text.

This lesson uses In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson as an example, but this activity is effective with any work of literature in which connections are important.

Students use Shakespeare's Secret, a featured title on the Teachers' Choices Booklist (International Reading Association, 2006), as a springboard to the exploration of the controversy regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's works. The novel makes liberal use of the historical details surrounding William Shakespeare's life and exposes students to the possibility raised by some theorists that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the works that have long been attributed to the Bard. Students explore the historical references in the novel and generate questions for further research. As they research these questions on suggested websites, they organize their findings with the help of the ReadWriteThink Notetaker. Then they work in small groups to create and present short dramatic skits that creatively connect the novel with the historical facts.

After reading Richard Wright's short novel Rite of Passage, students will demonstrate their understanding of plot, character, and conflict by writing recommendations for the protagonists' future to a juvenile court system judge. Students are guided through the development of these recommendations, including attention to counterarguments based on potential prevailing attitudes in the justice system at the time.

In this video, students learn why we write friendly letters, as well as how to properly write one.

This lesson asks 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. Students read, listen to, or view King's speech and pay close attention to his word use and use of literary devices. They analyze King's definitions of freedom, justice, discrimination, and dreams as demonstrated by the details in his speech. After a thorough exploration of the power of the speech, students choose powerful words and themes from the text and arrange them into original diamante poems.

While this lesson focuses on the "I Have a Dream" speech, it could be adapted to any of King's speeches, as well as to famous speeches by others, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy" speech, Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," or Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?"

Teachers can use this activity to help teach students about segmenting sounds. The activity includes the use of a puppet and downloadable picture cards. A puppet can be made from a sock, paper bag, or popsicle sticks. Be creative!

Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale, shares her love of Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. This classic series of books, first published in 1908, follows young redheaded Anne from when she is first adopted to her eventual marriage to neighbor boy Gilbert and into her adult years. It encompasses many forms of love, from familial to romantic to enduring love. Atwood explains that author Montgomery did not have a happy childhood, and so she wrote the story she wished for herself. Be sure to discuss with students the questions in The Great American Read - Post-Viewing Discussion Questions under the Materials section.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• • Watch a video and answer contextual questions.
  • Build listening comprehension skills.

Students prepare an already published scholarly article for presentation, with an emphasis on identification of the author's thesis and argument structure, as well as an examination of source integration (the critic's engagement with primary and secondary source information). The class first analyzes a sample article of literary criticism and discusses how to annotate it for presentation. Each student then uses an online database to access an appropriate article of literary criticism connected to a work of literature they have already read as a class assignment. They then analyze the article and prepare the article for presentation by highlighting key elements of its structure and content. Finally, they present the article to their peers.

In this video, students learn about alphabetical order. Alphabetical order can be used for filing lists. The video teachers different games to help students remember alphabetical order. 

Students compare and contrast information from three sources to determine the reasons that contributed to the panda population decline. They draw conclusions from these sources by writing their own paragraphs.

Learning to recognize letters is an integral part of most kindergarten programs. The challenge is to keep students' interest while practicing until they are fluent. These lessons meet that challenge using a variety of activities. Students will apply their knowledge of letters and letter sounds as they play games and interact with letters online, using what they see and learn to create their own ABC book.

The teacher will present an informational text from the website, ReadWorks. Students will interact with this non-fiction text by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the article as an assessment. This learning activity will describe the freshwater distribution on the Earth's surface and provide a graphical representation of freshwater reservoirs. This activity can serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson. 

As kids become better readers, it is important for them to determine an author's meaning, even when the author does not come right out and say it. In this water balloon game, kids can practice drawing conclusions in a silly way.

Either, nor? Or, neither? Neither! You use correlative conjunctions in connecting two equal grammatical items. If a noun follows "either," then a noun will also follow "or." If a noun follows "neither," then a noun will also follow "nor."

This resource provides students with the opportunity to identify correlative conjunctions.