Whether it is a protagonist, antagonist, hero or heroine, characters are a must in any story. Learners analyze a character from a narrative they are reading, then use that character as inspiration. They create a ceramic bust depicting...

Students create a news story on one of the top 100 news stories of the 20th century.choose one past news event. They write a news story about that event, and provide a continuation of the story based on their research.

First graders explore wildlife and habitats in the Arizona desert. Throughout a classroom discussion, 1st graders observe pictures of the desert and animals that live there. As they go on a nature walk around the school, students...

Read The Napping House and describe the visual characteristics of the illustrations.  In this perspective lesson, learners identify color elements.  They recognize that the text is repetitive and find patterns in the...

Sixth graders read Katherine Paterson's novel, Bridge to Terabithia, and watch a video of Maurice Sendak's book, Where the Wild Things Are. They examine the characters in both stories that share similar characteristics. Students use the...

Give your class some background information on both Nathaniel Hawthorne and his short story "Young Goodman Brown." Basic themes and characters are introduced, especially as this is an allegory with many symbolic elements. Help your...

Is it possible to tell a true war story? Tim O’Brien says that fiction is for “getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.” To get at the truth about war, class members examine primary source materials from the...

In this engaging activity involving close analysis of abstract expressionist art, your class members will not only discover more about artist Friz Scholder's Native American art, but they will also have the opportunity to consider...

Students examine the serigraph, "Wynton's Tune," by artist Faith Ringgold. They discuss the painting, listen to jazz music, create a drawing that tells a story inspired by their favorite music, and write sentences describing their artwork.

And then what happened? Class members engage in a series of activities that model for them how to read the story in a painting. Participants respond to questions that ask them to closely examine the elements in William Glackens'...

Mark Twain's life, politics, writing, and role as a mirror of pre- and post-Civil War American culture are the focus 11th and 12th graders in this section from an expansive author study. A critical writing assignment comparing Twain...

Second graders review the basic elements of a story. Individually, they write their own original story as they use a software program to help them map out their ideas. With a partner, they exchange papers and read them for grammatical...

Students develop a comparison worksheet using one non fiction book and one fiction book they have read to be put into a class scrapbook. In their comparison students must have title, author, point of view, setting, characters, and other...

Students read various examples of literature. In groups, they brainstorm a list of views that go against what was in one of the stories. They illustrate the opposite ideas and compile them into a class book. They use each other to...

Students complete a Web Quest on How to Write a Mystery. They listen to or read a short mystery story and discuss its elements. They write an outline of a mystery story using all of the elements.

Second graders demonstrate the ability to examine the elements of a story (theme, plot, setting, mood) and characters, by discussing and writing about each. They have fun with chocolate related activities and enjoy reading about some...

Learners create original short stories that feature distinctive weather phenomena, such as rainbows, snowstorms, tornadoes, thunder and/or lightning. They use a story map, imbedded in this plane, to help them organize their story.

Learners accompany music to the story Bringing the Rain to the Kapiti Plain - Kenya to show how sound and music can accompany story description. In this music lesson, students learn how to show sound during a story.

Eighth graders study the usage of symbolism in poetry and examine how symbolism can be used to explain their own lives and emotions. They read and discuss poems by Robert Frost and Shel Silverstein.

Students interview the chemical elements. They research information about their element, such as: stable isotopes, valence electrons, number of subatomic particles. They create a yearbook page for their element, and a format to present it.

Students identify characters, their qualities, and examples of their qualities and use Inspiration to organize them in a clear and understandable format. After a lecture/demo, students use the program on the next story by themselves.

Twelfth graders discuss the elements of effective debating. they debate governmental issues after reseraching selected topics. With student permission, the debate may be videotaped for viewing to other classes or during open house.

Students present the outline of the mystery story they are writing while working in reciprocal teaching groups. They respond to group members writing before they continue to finish revisions.

Young scholars discuss creative writing—what makes something creative writing? Each learner starts writing a story and after 15 minutes, they pass their story to another who adds to it. After another 15 minutes of writing, the story is...