Magazine Redux: An Exercise in Critical Literacy
(View Complete Item Description)Paper and pixels get compared in this lesson in which students compare both printed and online versions of a magazine.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
All resources in JCS ELA Team
Making Memories: An End-of-Year Digital Scrapbook
(View Complete Item Description)Students reflect on their school year, creating a digital scrapbook consisting of images and text to present to their school community.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Modeling Academic Writing Through Scholarly Article Presentations
(View Complete Item Description)Students prepare an already published scholarly article for presentation, with an emphasis on identification of the author's thesis and argument structure.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
MyTube: Changing the World With Video Public Service Announcements
(View Complete Item Description)This assignment will go viral with students as they think about the meanings of words and images in public service announcements from YouTube before creating a PSA of their own.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
Myth and Truth: The Gettysburg Address
(View Complete Item Description)By exploring myths and truths surrounding Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding this famous speech from the Civil War era.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Name That Chapter! Discussing Summary and Interpretation Using Chapter Titles
(View Complete Item Description)Students name unnamed chapters in a novel they are reading. They discuss possible chapter names, considering accuracy, word choice, and connotation, before settling on a choice.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Not Your Usual History Lesson: Writing Historical Markers
(View Complete Item Description)Students will develop their summarizing skills while learning about local history. They will learn to consider audience while selecting topics, conducting research and interviews, and writing historical markers for their town.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
The Passion of Punctuation
(View Complete Item Description)Using published writers' texts and students' own writing, this unit explores emotions that are associated with the artful and deliberate use of commas, semicolons, colons, and exclamation points (end-stop marks of punctuation).
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
Paying Attention to Technology: Reviewing a Technology
(View Complete Item Description)Students read and analyze technology reviews to establish the characteristics of the genre. They then compose their own reviews on a technology of their choice.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Paying Attention to Technology: Writing Technology Autobiographies
(View Complete Item Description)This lesson plan asks students to pay attention to the technologies they use. They graphically map their interactions with technology and compose narratives of their most significant interactions with technology.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Persuading Readers with Endorsement Letters
(View Complete Item Description)Students explore the genre of commercial endorsements, establishing characteristics and requirements for the genre. Each student then composes an endorsement of a product, service, company, or industry.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Persuading an Audience: Writing Effective Letters to the Editor
(View Complete Item Description)Students use persuasive writing and an understanding of the characteristics of letters to the editor to compose effective letters to the editor on topics of interest to them.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Every Punctuation Mark Matters: A Minilesson on Semicolons
(View Complete Item Description)Students analyze stylistic choices and grammar use in authentic writing, focusing on the use of the semicolon in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail."
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Breaking the Rules with Sentence Fragments
(View Complete Item Description)Though teachers usually caution students against using sentence fragments, Edgar Schuster's work demonstrates that professional writers often use fragments effectively. This lesson helps students understand that there are reasons that they can and should use sentence fragments to become effective writers.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Brave New Words: Novice Lexicography and the Oxford English Dictionary
(View Complete Item Description)Students become novice lexicographers as they explore recent new entries to the dictionary, learn the process of writing entries for the Oxford English Dictionary, and write a new entry themselves.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
The History Behind Song Lyrics
(View Complete Item Description)Students research the items listed in the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel, noting their historical relevance, and then document their findings using an online chart.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
Action Is Character: Exploring Character Traits with Adjectives
(View Complete Item Description)Students must "become" a character in a novel in order to describe themselves and other characters using powerful adjectives.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Audience & Purpose: Evaluating Disney's Changes to the Hercules Myth
(View Complete Item Description)What drives changes to classic myths and fables? In this lesson students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules" in order to achieve their audience and purpose.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues
(View Complete Item Description)Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
A "Brief, Urgent Message": Theme in Slaughterhouse-Five
(View Complete Item Description)As a culminating activity for "Slaughterhouse-Five", students make a compilation album (a CD with 6-8 tracks) that reflects their analysis, understanding, and reaction to the ideas in the novel "Slaughterhouse-Five".
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan