Read the descriptive paragraph (included) with your middle schoolers, and have them study the stylistic elements included. They'll look for vivid verbs, alliteration, assonance, similes, and personification. Before writers craft their...

Make predictions and recall details while reading A House For Hermit Crab. While you read the story, discuss aspects of the plot and encourage listeners to respond. Extension activities such as crafts, counting, puppets, and...

Pairs use desktop publishing software, as well as digital video and camera equipment, to craft a book review. These reviews are then shared with others in the school community through the class or school website.

A reading of Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter opens a discussion of justice and fairness. Using a Venn diagram and an Idea Wheel graphic organizer, class members consider the similarities and differences in these two terms. They then...

With this New York Times "Learning Network" exercise, high schoolers read an article about the death of Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are and then respond to several prompts that require them to shape their own opinions...

Young learners explore gender roles in advertising by taking an ad campaign they have seen which is specifically directed to one gender, and redesigning the campaign to target the opposite gender. After leading a guided discussion about...

Although the article that launches this lesson is about the history of the Periodic Table, the objective is reading comprehension. Using the eight-page informational text, learners answer five comprehension questions and craft one essay....

A reading of “Gatsby’s Green Light Beckons a New Set of Strivers,” a New York Times article by Sara Rimer, triggers a discussion of the American Dream and what it means to strive for something. Following the discussion, class members...

Use the Schoolhouse Rock episode, "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla," to introduce a study of pronouns. Learners consider antecedents, cases (nominative, objective and possessive), as well as types of pronouns, and then craft sentences using...

Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown” and Billy Joel’s “Allentown” motivate young lyricists to craft poems about their own home town. Groups compare the two songs, identifying details, symbols, and conflicts. Individuals then picture a place...

Who was Walt Whitman, and what link does he have to president Abraham Lincoln?  After Lincoln's assassination, Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" This poem and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" are the focus of...

Greed is the theme of this collection of multidisciplinary activities. As a class, read The West African folktale, Anansi Goes to Lunch by Bobby Norfolk, and take part in a grand discussion about it's plot and theme. Reinforce the...

“Words can be like x-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything.” Readers of Brave New World will be pierced by an activity that asks them to use details from the text to craft a biopoem for one of the characters in Aldous...

After completing Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose, class members assume the voice of Gemma and craft a personal letter to her granddaughter telling Becca how she feels about Becca’s actions and the discoveries at Chelmno. Complete directions for...

Do your young readers have difficulty visualizing what they read? Although the activity described here is for The Call of the Wild, the strategy could be used with any narrative. At the conclusion of each chapter of Jack London’s novel,...

Considering an examination of point of view? Use visual arts to engage learners in of this element of art and literature. Class members select a portrait from the Renaissance Connection and, guided by a series of brainstorming...

Instruct your readers to scrounge through the pages of Maniac Magee in search for descriptive passages or words they may use to write poetry. As they look for meaningful, sensory descriptors in Jerry Spinelli's novel, readers...

As part of a study of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, class members respond to, and craft, higher-level comprehension questions based on passages from the text. 

Knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. Class members use Bloom's taxonomy to craft six levels of discussion questions for Chris Crowe's novel, Mississippi Trial, 1955. Model questions from Chapter 3, a...

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien’s well-known fantasy, provides the words for two vocabulary exercises. Readers craft sentences using words from the text and fill in the blanks to make meaning out of a second series of sentences.

“What’s in a name?” Just about everything. Barack Obama, Vincent van Gogh, Justin Bieber. Famous names evoke a multitude of reactions and poets often use the names of famous people in their works precisely because names carry...

Ever wonder where wool comes from? How it is used to make a woven rug? Introduce the Native American craft of rug making to your preschool or kindergarten class with a discussion. Learners examine and discuss images of a Native American...

Metaphors, the definition of, types of, and examples of, are the subject of a short video that models for viewers this grand poobah of literary terms. Colorful images and animations are used to illustrate the connections between...

"Ode to la Tortilla" and "Ode to Joy"? Sure! Use Gary Soto's poem to introduce learners to the ode format. After examining the descriptive words Soto uses, class members study a poster of Ludwig van Beethoven, suggest words that describe...