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Content Area: Language Arts

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”?

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).

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.

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.

Creating 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!

Puzzle: Antonym Paths

Begin with a small, simple word and identify its antonym. Then, take this second word and find its antonym. Many times, you’ll find that an antonym of an antonym isn’t always related the original word.

Exploring Palindromes in ELA and Math

Palindromes are one of those fun ideas that some gifted kids just latch onto. We’ll check out palindromic words, phrases, and even numbers in this article.

Interesting Spelling: Homographs & Homonyms

Many students blow past grade-level spelling and vocabulary at a young age. Unfortunately, a common technique to “challenge” them is to find harder and more obscure words for their spelling list. Instead, let’s take advantage of the built-in complexity of common words with multiple-meanings.

What Influences A Character’s Traits?

To add depth to character analysis, let’s look beyond a character’s traits and dig into what influenced them to have those traits.

Studying Ambiguous Sentences

This type of sentence has great possibilities for classroom application because of its two different interpretations. It’s a perfect tool to: demonstrate careful reading, showcase the need for editing while writing, and encourage creativity and divergent thinking.

Jabberwocky, Parts of Speech, and Context Clues

Let’s see how we can use a classic piece of poetry to enhance a lesson on parts of speech or context clues. This provides exposure to a great work and also increases the complexity of a typical task.

Writing Mother’s Day Similes

Mother’s Day is coming up, and it’s the perfect chance to practice figurative language. Help your students create thoughtful cards, packed with rich similes and metaphors that relate directly to their mothers.

Garden Path Sentences

Garden Path Sentences seem to begin one way, but quickly fall apart, forcing the reader to start over and interpret words in a new way. A simple example is: “The old man the boat.”

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