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.

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.

The lesson includes an exploration of the genre of letters to the editor, a review of persuasive writing structure and letter format, and an emphasis on multi-draft writing. The lesson focuses on the character Roy Eberhardt from Carl Hiaasen’s Newbery Honor Book Hoot for its examples. Students can complete the activity for any book that they have read.

In this alternative to the traditional book report, students have to really understand a character from a book they have read in order to successfully communicate the essence of the character using a few words and symbols on a business card. They begin by discussing the details commonly found on business cards and looking at samples. They think about how font, colors, and logos can be used to represent their characters, as well as the taglines, products and services, and other details that could be included. Students then use planning sheets to think through the elements they want to include on their business cards before creating the final version using a word processing program on the computer.

In this lesson, students are given the opportunity to be imaginative as they create illustrated postcards that depict one of the settings of their novel choices featuring journeys. Furthermore, they communicate about the importance of the settings as they write the text of their postcards.

In this lesson, students are introduced to familiar characters, from literature and from popular culture, whom readers first encounter as adults, but whose childhood stories are only told later. Students first discuss Merlin from the stories of King Arthur before reading Jane Yolen's Merlin and the Dragon. They then discuss the characteristics and stories of other familiar literary characters who are first introduced as adults. Then, in groups, students plan their own versions of a childhood for a selected character, and describe that childhood in the form of a short story, journal entry, or time capsule letter. This lesson uses Jane Yolen's Merlin and the Dragon to model the concept, as well as several examples from literature and popular culture. A suggested booklist is also provided.

Facebook-like pages used as book reports provide students a unique format to review several elements of fiction typically found in a traditional book report. Through the sharing of their Facebook-like pages in class, students will have suggestions for future reading.

Students work in groups to read and discuss a book, keeping track of their feelings and opinions about the book, as well as facts and quotations, as they read. Students then decide which parts of their review they wish to annotate, with each student in the group responsible for one topic. Each student writes about his or her topic, including bibliographic information.

This teacher's guide for The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson with Marilyn J. Harran and Elisabeth B. Leyson contains discussion questions and activities for reading comprehension, learning about craft and structure, integrating information, and writing practice.

Ruri, a young Japanese girl, and her family are taken to an internment camp during WWII because the US government was afraid Japanese Americans would ally with Japan. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Using a scaffolded process and moving from whole group to individual work, students will explore iconic images from the Civil Rights Movement and create captions that summarize the features and ideas in the images. To publish their work, students can use the ReadWriteThink Printing Press, Trading Card Creator, or Stapleless Book student interactives. This lesson uses the topic of the Civil Rights movement, but can also be done with other thematic sets of images.

This article describes scientists Ken and Molly Glander’s research on the eating habits of howler monkeys in Costa Rica. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Students research the three tenets of cell theory and describe the scientific evidence that supports this theory. After students complete their research, they will engage in all steps of the writing process, including prewriting, outlining, revising, and editing. At the conclusion of the lesson, students will create a three-paragraph argumentative essay to examine the cell theory and the scientific evidence that supports this theory.

In this short story, Jose learns a valuable lesson about himself when he tries to impress Estella by challenging her to a game of racquetball. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students will select a piece of their own writing that contains dialogue then go through the piece highlighting the speech of each character in a different color. Then they will go through the piece again looking for and correcting "character clashes" that occur when two speakers are highlighted in the same paragraph.

In her poem "Nikki-Rosa," Nikki Giovanni describes specific moments from her childhood. The images she recalls are more than biographical details; they are evidence to support her premise that growing up black doesn't always mean growing up in hardship. In this lesson, students explore what Jago calls the place "where life and art intersect" by carefully reading and discussing Giovanni's poem. They explore their own childhood memories using an interactive tool and then write about these memories, using Giovanni's poem as a model.

Chuck Close is an American artist who overcomes many obstacles in his life, both unexpected and self-induced. He overcame his first obstacle early in his childhood when he didn’t let his learning disorder stop him from becoming an artist. Later in his career, doctors told him his career was finished, but Chuck found a way to continue painting without full use of his body. In this CCSS lesson students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Panchito, a young migrant worker, lives life with his family on the circuit—a cycle of seasonal crop harvesting. Each move on the circuit is signaled by the appearance of cardboard boxes, which hold all the family’s possessions. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

After their car crashes in a blizzard and their parents are injured, Danielle and Jake must climb to a weather station near the top of a mountain to get help for themselves and their family. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This lesson has students create stories that reflect this kind of reading. Students begin by reading untraditional books that use fragmented storylines, multiple perspectives, and unresolved plots. They apply these same types of strategies to their own writing, which they then publish using wiki technology. In doing so, students practice important literacy skills including searching for information, integrating images into text, and creating storylines that are reflective of the new types of reading found on the Internet. With different on-level literature, this lesson can also be adapted for high school classrooms.