I knew how to help my below-level writers become on-level. But how the heck do you make the next step?
Content Area: Language Arts
How To Run A Novel Study
When you read a book with students, avoid getting bogged down with the nitty-gritty. Just pick one big idea and have fun reading! No quizzes, no memorizing, no essays. Just develop your students’ love of reading.
Writing in Pi-lish
Here’s the perfect constraint for March! Writing with the digits of Pi.
Analyzing Prefixes and Suffixes
Instead of just memorizing what a bunch of morphemes mean, we’re looking broadly, exploring patterns, finding unexpected similarities and weird differences.
From “Summarize” to “Synthesize”
Even what seems like a low-level “summarize” task can become beautifully high-level when we climb Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Rewrite It, But Don’t Use “E”
Here’s an interesting way to move students past mundane patterns in their writing. Ask for a rewrite, but without a letter (or two).
Using Art to Practice Reading
When you’re teaching a reading skill, can you replace some of those dull sample texts with glorious artwork?
Making Punctuation Interesting
How can we move a punctuation lesson beyond mere memorization and towards interesting thinking?
A Classic: “Who’s On First” and 21st Century Kids
My 21st century 12-year-olds absolutely died watching Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s On First” skit. And we got a great homophone activity out of it too.
Remix the Song “Help!”
Students took the classic song, Help!, and rewrote it to be about their collective summers.
What could we do with this Wax Museum event?
How one might revamp a “Wax Museum” project into something that focuses more on thinking than product.
Getting Ridiculous with Parts of Speech
Here’s how you can add some spice to an otherwise dull study of parts of speech.
Rewriting a Sentence With Different Coordinating Conjunctions
The first unit in our writing program was always teaching the coordinating conjunctions. It always felt goofy teaching this to 6th graders – especially a gifted magnet class. I mean… do they really not know the difference between “and” and “but”?
The Westing Game – Book Study Ideas
Sixteen unlikely heirs? A mysterious murder? A fortune on the line? Let’s dig into The Westing Game!
Synonym Graphs
Use a two-dimensional scatter plot to dig into the nuances of several synonyms.
Finding the Fun in “It’s” vs “Its”
How do we differentiate a dull lesson like “its” vs “it’s”? I decided to push it to an extreme (and include some unexpected novelty).
A Christmas Carol – Study Guide Ideas
Take your students through Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol this holiday season and expose them to a classic while exploring the Universal Theme of Change. And, hey, since this story’s in the public domain, you can print out a PDF or link to the text at Project Gutenburg. A Christmas Carol Summary Dickens has organized […]
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – Book Study Ideas
Here’s how I’d wrap a big idea around our study of “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”. We’d investigate the paradox that people want to both fit in and be unique! A quote from the author, E. L. Konigsburg, will be our entry point.
Matilda – Book Study Ideas
Roald Dahl’s Matilda, a childhood favorite of mine, opens up some fantastic discussions about adults, being brave, and how power can be used and abused.
The Resiliency Tournament
I got to work with several groups of students (of many ages) and I tried out this task: building a tournament to decide who was the most resilient historical figure or fictional character? Kids came up with some amazing ideas.
A Wrinkle In Time – Novel Study Ideas
Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 science-fiction classic, A Wrinkle in Time makes for a fantastic classroom novel study.
Word Pyramids – A Delightful Vocabulary Puzzle
A fun, abstract vocab puzzle in which students can add one letter per line, forming a pyramid of words.
Books with 700, 800, 900, & 1000 Lexile, Recommended By Teachers
A reader was looking for examples of high-quality books for gifted/talented 4th and 5th graders, but she was constrained to a lexile range of 900-1000. Here are the recs I received…
Creating Better Research Questions
Once students have a topic they’d like to research, how do we help them form more interesting questions?
Academic Love Letters
We’re going to take the Academic Valentine idea from earlier, and extend it into a full blown love letter – just in time for Valentine’s Day!