In this series of lessons, students will create a character that expresses a personal definition of peace, and work in collaborative research groups to evaluate different perspectives on peace. Additionally, students will synthesize and summarize different perspectives on peace in a visual map, as well as create and perform in a skit that represents varied perspectives. Evaluation will involve a visual representation of peace and writing narrative type responses to questions and readings.

The student activites are inspired by Pablo Picasso's masterpiece entitled Guernica, which was an artistic expression resulting from the Spanish Civil War.This lesson supports third- through fifth-grade students as they apply think-aloud strategies to reading, as well as to the composition of artwork and poetry. Activities include collaborative as well as individual work. Technology tools are integrated as students research symbols of peace and as they prewrite, compose, and publish their poetry.

In this lesson, students are introduced to a three-step strategy for peer editing which prepares them to engage in constructive peer editing of classmates’ written work on a regular basis.

The PQP technique—Praise–Question–Polish—requires group members to take a turn reading their drafts aloud as the other students follow along with copies. This oral reading helps the writer to hear the piece in another voice and to identify possible changes independently.

This resource provides a lesson designed to follow lessons that ask students to write persuasive essays. After completing their essays, students will be responsible for creating a 5 slide presentation that effectively summarizes their essay. The presentation should include narrations for each slide. Students will share their completed slides with their peers.

Students begin this multi-day lesson by reading letters to the editor in local, regional, or national newspapers, note common characteristics of the genre, and catagorize those characteristics. Next, they search to find news articles on topics that interest them. After choosing one on which to focus, students summarize the article, then use an online tool to write a letter to the editor. After peer editing them, students publish their letters and send.

This lesson gives students the opportunity to examine opinion editorials and write their own on school issues. After reading and listening to opinion pieces, students identify strong examples of persuasion and record them on a graphic organizer. Small groups then brainstorm issues in the school that they believe deserve action plans. Each group uses graphic organizers to explore its issue. The group then constructs a letter on that issue. The letter is then edited for grammar and content, typed on a word processor, printed, and delivered to the school principal.

This tool helps students break down their argument into reasons and supporting details, which will help them write their letter.

In this lesson, students explore environmental issues that are relevant to their own lives, self-select topics, and gather information to write persuasive essays. Students participate in peer conferences to aid in the revision process and evaluate their essays through self-assessment. Although this lesson focuses on the environment as a broad topic, many other topics can be easily substituted for reinforcement of persuasive writing.

Students will learn about the persuasive strategies used by advertisers. Students will be able to divide advertisements into three categories: pathos, logos, and ethos.

In this lesson, students recognize and produce rhyming words. They are able to add or substitute sounds in simple words to make new words. Students will practice by reading nursery rhymes with similarly spelled words and identify the sounds of the letters that differ.

In this lesson, students become familiar with the short /u/ sound as they listen to Taro Yashima’s Caldecott Honor-winning book, Umbrella. Prereading activities build vocabulary and comprehension skills, a read-aloud introduces students to the sounds of the story, and concluding exercises allow students to apply their understanding of phonic elements in other contexts.

In this lesson, a combination of children's literature, learning centers, and activities focus on learning about the letter m. Students will learn about phonics by participating in an integrated array of activities, including reading, writing, mathematics, music, art, and technology.

In this unit, students will become aware of the importance of retelling and essential story elements through teacher modeling and progressive levels of independent work. Students demonstrate their understanding of stories through the use of online interactive graphic organizers and present story elements of an individual book through a book talk.

This resource provides a lesson that is designed to assist learners with improving their ability to handle a graphic novel. Students will focus on the beginning of the work Persepolis and examine the art used to varying effects. Students will attempt to familiarize themselves with strategies pertaining to making connections to the visual elements presented.

Batter up! Studies show that using topics from popular culture in the classroom motivates students to read and write. This lesson, which can also be adapted for other topics, encourages students to look critically at trivia questions before writing their own. Students begin by listening to a read-aloud of Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man by David A. Adler and visiting websites containing baseball facts. Using the information they discover, students write questions to include in a Jeopardy game PowerPoint template. Playing the game with classmates enables students to share the facts they have discovered and creates a cooperative atmosphere in the classroom.

In this lesson, students will read Chrysanthemum to introduce the topic of names. Students make Name Bingo cards by writing the name of each classmate in a different square of a blank Bingo board. Next, students brainstorm personal questions designed to get to know one another. To play the game, the teacher randomly calls out a name, and students cover that name on their board with a marker. In this twist of the traditional bingo game, after each name is chosen, the student responds by answering one of the questions designed to help students learn more about one another.

In this lesson, students play with words as they explore how prepositions work in Ruth Heller’s picture book, Behind the Mask. They first explore the use of language in the text and identify how prepositions are used. They then read and identify prepositions used in a poem. Finally, students compose their own original prepositional poems, which they publish in a multimodal format modeled on Heller’s text.

This resource provides a lesson whereupon students will use their knowledge of the character Holden from the novel Catcher in the Rye to create a fictitous playlist. Students must defend their choices for songs using evidence from the text.

This lesson plan provides a basic introduction to Freytag's Pyramid and to the literary element of plot. After viewing a brief presentation about plot structure, students brainstorm the significant events in a story with which they are all familiar and place those events on Freytag’s Pyramid. They work in small groups to map the plot of another story.