This lesson explores the language of electronic messages and how it affects other writing. Furthermore, it explores the freedom and creativity for using Internet abbreviations for specific purposes and examines the importance of a more formal style of writing based on audience.

The students will explore the relationship between purpose, audience, and appropriate language. The students will, also, compose originial emails and letters using appropriate language and word choice

This lesson asks students to keep a daily diary that records how and when they listen to radio, music, and other streaming media. Students then analyze the details and compare their results to published reports on American radio listeners. They conclude by reflecting on their findings and writing a final statement on their audio literacy practices and interests.

This lesson will teach how characters evolve across a story, and that often times the important changes are subtle. This lesson uses accountable-talk during a read aloud of One Green Apple by Eve Bunting to demonstrate how, as readers, students can use the traits of their character as a lens through which to interpret deeper, more significant changes stirring within. They will ultimately use those observations about their characters to author an epilogue for their books. The epilogue will allow students to demonstrate what they have learned about their main character, and it will allow the teacher to assess how well the students understand their characters and the changes their characters experienced across the text.

In designing a lesson to promote effective word choice in students' writing, the object is to start with something familiar. In this lesson, students start by discussing the associations they feel for car names from the 60s and 70s and analyze why those names were chosen. They then work in small groups on one of several possible activities, each exploring connotation in the context of car names.

In this lesson, students will use mentor texts and will construct a definition of alliteration. Using these texts as models, students experiment with creating alliterative sentences.

This lesson prepares students to be independent and responsible for their own just-right book selections during independent reading time. Using the BOOKMATCH poster, the teacher introduces various criteria that influence book selection, such as length, language, topic, and genre. Students select books for independent reading using several of these criteria. In subsequent lessons, they discuss and evaluate their book choices and are introduced to additional selection criteria. Ongoing support and practice lead to increased awareness of their personal preferences as readers.

This lesson allows students to reflect upon and personally relate to a teacher read-aloud of a narrative story that focuses on acceptable behaviors and ways to prevent bullying in class and at school.

In this lesson students will trace the history of the Barbie doll and how it has affected body image and self-esteem through media.

Students match the character traits of a character in a book they are reading with specific actions the character takes. Students then work in pairs to "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using Internet reference tools to compile lists of accurate, powerful adjectives supported with details from the reading. The lesson uses The Scarlet Letter as an example, but this activity is effective with any work of literature in which characterization is important.

Students use Shakespeare's Secret, a featured title on the Teachers' Choices Booklist (International Reading Association, 2006), as a springboard to exploration of the controversy regarding the authorship 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.

In this lesson, students compare the classic tale with a version set in the pre–Civil War South, Moss Gown by William Hooks, noting the architecture, weather, time period, and culture as depicted in the text and illustrations. Internet research projects and Story Map graphic organizers then provide background for a discussion of how the setting of a story affects the characters and plot. Students read one or more other versions of the Cinderella story and compare them using a Venn diagram. During the final two sessions, students plan, write, and peer edit their own Cinderella stories.

n this lesson, students explore a historic event in depth by reading fiction and nonfiction literature. Then, to enhance and extend the reading experience, students participate in website exploration and virtual field trips. Throughout the process, students gather facts and relevant information, which they later organize and present to the class. This lesson is easily adaptable to accommodate a wide range of historic events, instructional objectives, and grade levels.

For this lesson, students are invited to attend a 19th Century party as a character from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. To play this role, students must understand the values and customs Dickens' characters represented in Victorian society. This lesson is divided into three stages: Group Investigative Roles, Individual Characterizations, and Individual Presentations. Students collaboratively research the life and times of Charles Dickens as it relates to a character, and write and present a first-person character analysis.

A BioBag is a kind of literature autobiography, a collection of written works that represent memories or milestones in a person’s life. This might include books, letters, diaries, and recipes, all representing various aspects of a life story. In this lesson, the teacher starts by sharing his or her own BioBag with the class. Next, students visit a website to learn about several children's authors and the texts that inspired them. Then students interview one another about the texts that have been important in their lives. Finally, students put together their own BioBags and present them to the class.

This lesson sets the stage for high-interest reading with a purpose through a biography project. Students work together to generate questions they would like to answer about several well-known people, then each student chooses one of these and finds information by reading a biography from the library and doing Internet research. Students create a graphic organizer (a web) to organize the facts they have found and share what they have learned about their subjects through oral presentations. Students evaluate themselves and their classmates by using a rubric during the research and graphic organizer-creation process and by giving written feedback on one another's presentations.

This lesson supports the use of a text set (paired fiction and nonfiction texts on a similar topic) to increase student interest in and understanding of content area material and to develop critical writing skills. The more familiar format of narrative fiction introduces the topic and generates confidence in exploring the less familiar genre of nonfiction. Students then demonstrate what they have learned about the topic and about genre by writing an original piece that blends together narrative and expository elements.

This lesson is designed to help students prepare to read a historical novel. Students are required to complete research pertaining to the work's setting, time-period or decade. Afterwards, students use the online site and software, Prezi, to communicate and share their findings.

This extended lesson offers students a unique way to explore new books and think about the education process. They first participate in a "blind date" with a book - a quick reading of one small part of a novel - after which they are asked to rate it. Eventually, students choose a book to read and go on to debate whether their book should be added to the curriculum.

This lesson provides an introduction to the use of factual information in creative writing. Students first examine texts to identify how a published author incorporates facts in fiction writing by reading and questioning the books Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider, and Diary of a Fly (Cronin). After conducting inquiry on their own to gather facts on a topic decided upon by the class, students use their facts to write several diary entries collaboratively, entries which will contribute to a class book modeled on the mentor texts. Finally, students peer review each other’s work, and revise and edit their own writing before using the Multigenre Mapper interactive to publish their work.