I Compared Characters, Yet Stayed At “Remember” I set up an Analyze question, but never actually asked it! All of these questions are at the "remember" level.
Free Verse from A Particular Point of View My go-to writing task is a free verse poem written from a particular perspective. I learned this idea from my boss, Sandi, who learned it from Joan Franklin Smutny (I think!). You can use ANYTHING as your prompt. A piece of art works well to introduce the idea, but you can move to writing once […]
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.
Puzzle: Words Within Words In need of some nice word puzzles that will keep your students busy? Ask them to find as many words as they can within another word. For example: can you find 10 words made from the letters in "soldier"? How about 20? 50?
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."
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 […]
Inductive Thinking in Spelling and Vocabulary Let's look at a couple ways to bring inductive thinking into word studies. We'll examine simple plural rules all the way up to etymology of foreign words in English.
Differentiating “Compare & Contrast” with Classics Here's how I differentiated the reading skill of "Compare & Contrast" for my students, who have been successfully comparing and contrasting since kindergarten. Students investigated artists, developed a haiku, and learned how to shade with pencils.
Picture Books and Stories for Introducing Depth and Complexity Three picture books that I've used (or would use) to introduce Depth and Complexity to students of any age.
From “Summarize” to “Synthesize” Even what seems like a low-level "summarize" task can become beautifully high-level when we climb Bloom's Taxonomy.
