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Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Using Word and Picture Clues to Make an Inference

For Teachers 1st Standards
First graders will use text evidence to make inferences about word and word phrase meanings in a text. Word and picture clues will be used to help students form inferences.
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Activity
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Donkey Hodie: Activity Starters

For Students Pre-K - 1st Standards
There are four sources in this activity bundle. Cut out these learning cards for quick, adult-led conversation and activity starters for school and for home. In activities 3 and 4, students make Character Puppets and play Puppet Theater...
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Lesson Plan
Louisiana Department of Education

Louisiana Doe: Louisiana Believes: Ela Guidebooks: Accountable Talk

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
This strategy helps students refine their understanding of texts to meet reading expectations, engage in group conversations to meet speaking and listening expectations, and prepare for writing about texts.
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Primary
Josie's Poems

Josie's Poems: "Expressing Ourselves"

For Students 2nd - 4th Standards
A poem about how animals communicate and how humans are different because of the way we can communicate.
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Professional Doc
AdLit

Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: Raft Writing

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
RAFT is a writing strategy that helps students understand their role as a writer, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the topic they'll be writing about. By using this strategy, teachers encourage students...
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Activity
Scholastic

Scholastic: Write Your Own Flight Story

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Online writing prompt for young journalists to-be. Excellent for diagnostic or even more advanced teaching of journalism.
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Activity
University of Calgary

University of Calgary: In the Mirror of Genre

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
A teacher's research project page that explores his students' journal responses to various literary works. Basic and limited entries.
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Lesson Plan
University of Oregon

Pizzaz, Creative Writing and Storytelling: Magazine Marvels

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
This PIZZAZ lesson allows students the opportunity to write stories about magazine picture collections. Two examples of creative writing pieces are provided.
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Handout
Other

Usa Today: Usa Weekend/small Talk Is a Big Deal

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Article on the importance of small talk, based on information from Bernardo Carducci, author of "the Pocket Guide to Making Successful Small Talk." At the end of the article you'll find "5 steps to making smart small talk." It also...
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Rubric
Other

Public Relations Writing: How I Grade a Press Release.

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Specialized but useful rubric geared towards examining journalistic style writing. Provides evaluation guidelines that one teacher uses, with a rubric to evaluate.
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Handout
Other

Jewish World Review: Stating the Obvious

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Is empathic listening so obvious as to be moronic? Does it work? Here's a dissenting viewpoint of some of the more popular listening, communication, and interpersonal relationship theories.
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Handout
Other

Analytic Technologies: Manual for Working in Teams

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Basic information on communicating in teams. Explains that you must get to know your teammates and their individual strengths and weaknesses. Discusses setting goals, having a structure for different responsibilities, and having meetings.
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Handout
Other

Artemis: Using the Net for Team Communication

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This site lists some ways and provides some tips for teams to use while communicating in a virtual setting.
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Website
Other

Newswriting for Radio

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Students and writers can get pointers on improving writing skills for newscasts. Click through all the tabs to get the most out of this tutorial. This site also links to other radio journalism websites.
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Website
Other

Crayon: Create Your Own Newspaper

For Students 3rd - 5th Standards
This site offers helpful templates and formatting advice for students to create their own newspaper.
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Handout
Other

Pstcc: Four Principles of Interpersonal Communication

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Discusses four inevitable components of interpersonal communication. These principles occur in real interpersonal interaction and are basic to communication.
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Handout
Other

Snn Newsroom: Reporter's Toolbox: Writing Editorials and Columns

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
Advice and examples of editorial and feature column writing, along with an explanation of the role that editorial writers and columnists fill. Explains how to structure this type of writing in order to present clear arguments.
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Handout
Other

Writing News Stories 3 Basic Styles & Tips for Writing

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
An overview of the three basic styles for writing news stories and some tips to follow for writing good news stories.
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Website
Other

Great voice.com

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Berkley Productions at GreatVoice.com helps train voice professionals. From this page you can link to free subscription forms to two ezines. Under each form are links to sample articles, several of which pertain to tone of voice.
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Handout
Other

Rmit University: Rmit Counselling Service: Talking to People [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This material on people skills discusses how to develop and maintain people skills. It also contains a section in the middle about the importance of receiving messages (listening) and common barriers to doing so.
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Article
University of Pennsylvania

U Penn Library: Dreiser's Critical Reputation

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
A scholarly paper on Theodore Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" and the problem of using words to communicate as opposed to tone and other non-verbal means.
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Handout
Other

Improving Communication Tips for Managers

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
The site focuses on improving communications between managers and staff. The article also discusses the real needs for workplace communication.
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Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Cosmic Oranges

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Contains plans for four 45-minute lessons that ask young scholars to use their senses and focus their attention while writing descriptively and observing scientifically. In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan...
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Article
Other

Beginning Reporting: The Rest of the News Story

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Just because much attention is paid to the lead of a story, it doesn't mean the middle and the end aren't important too. Here you can get tips on how to make the whole story effective, from a professional reporter.