Curated OER
Brown Bear Animals
Learners listen to the book Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do you See. They use a variety of art mediums to re-create large animal shapes representing the animals from the book, Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See.
Curated OER
Esperanza Rising - Literature Circles and Review (Day 3)
Kids love working with their peers. Get your class into small literature circles and have them complete weekly assignments. Before beginning this week's activity, have each learner write a letter from Esperanza in California to Abuelita...
National Endowment for the Humanities
“House by the Railroad”: A Painting and a Poem for the Common Core
Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading of the two...
Curated OER
Exploring Arthurian Legend
High schoolers investigate the evolution of the King Arthur stories and analyze them as a window into the culture that preserved them. They trace the legends through their earliest versions through medieval and Victorian times and into...
Curated OER
Analyzing Folklore: Redwall
Brian Jacques’ novel Redwall provides the focus for a series of lessons involving the analysis of folklore. Adopting the persona of a character, groups write letters in the voice of their character, assemble a collage using Microsoft...
The Kennedy Center
Fairy Tale Variations
Here are two great lessons that work together and are inspired by the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods. Young writers and actors will retell the story of "The Frog Prince" through games, improvisational script writing, and song....
Developing a Global Perspective for Educators
Imagine Being Me
The design of this two-day lesson eloquently exposes learners to the topic of social justice for people with disabilities. The plan is built off the reading of Are You Alone on Purpose? by Nancy Werlin. The activity introduces readers to...
Curated OER
Edward Lear, Limericks, and Nonsense
Introduce your class to the delights of nonsense poetry and explore literary devices with the writing of Edward Lear. Learners identify rhyme and meter as well as figures of speech, alliteration, and onomatopoeia in "The Owl and the...
Curated OER
One With Nature
Students discover the connection between Japanese art and Romantic literature using a variety of sources and the impact of nature on these two art forms. This lesson is a three-day exploration.
Curated OER
That Reminds Me
Students investigate various forms of literature using drawings, sentences, and class discussion. They pick the text to look at to keep student interest. The teacher helps the students use appropriate reading level books. They complete a...
Curated OER
The Name Game
Students identify acts of philanthropy in different works of literature. They idenify and illustrate examples in colonial America. They also read "Miss Rumphius" on how they can make the world a more beautiful place.
Curated OER
What Is Technology?
Second graders engage in a literature study that is concerned with transmitting new knowledge about modern technology. They identify different forms of technology and how it is used in everyday society. The lesson includes vocabulary...
Curated OER
A CLOSER LOOK
Middle schoolers group objects by their physical characteristics and various compositions using literature to stimulate recall.
Curated OER
Exploring the Sonnet
Learners research English/Shakespearean and Italian/Petrarchan sonnet forms. They write an original sonnet on their preferred form (English or Italian), write the poem on the wordprocessor and publish and post it on the net at the Sonnet...
Curated OER
The Underground Railroad
Fourth graders participate in a literature circle after reading a book about the Underground Railroad. They discuss their selected book with their literature circle group, and complete a handout about their role in the circle. Students...
Curated OER
How Tragic!
Students study and interpret a classical tragedy and role play a character from the play. In this tragedy lesson, students discuss a specific work to discover the form, structure, and characteristics of the genre and interpret the...
Curated OER
Famous Poems and Poets
Students investigate well known poets, forms, and poetry terms. They explore various websites, complete an online scavenger hunt, and take an online poetry test.
Curated OER
Being in the Noh: An Introduction to Japanese Noh Plays
Students analyze the conventions used in Noh plays and write an introduction to a Noh play of their own. In this Noh play lesson, students identify the conventions of the Noh form and analyze the realizations the main character achieves....
Curated OER
Making Singular Nouns Plural
Third graders complete worksheets and participate in interactive activities to classify plural words based on their singular form.
Curated OER
Kolam: A Living Art of South Asia
Students will read the short story "Meenakshi's Magic Hands" by Santhini Govindan and view a slide show of photo images interspersed with the text to learn of the art form of Kolam. Students read and reflect upon a nonfiction essay,...
Curated OER
Shadow Puppetry in South India
Students read a variety of literature from India, including folktales and fables. They then select a scene or story to script, work together to design and craft shadow puppets of characters and scenery, narrate a story, manipulate the...
Curated OER
We Can Work It Out
Students read different pieces of literature and practice using narrative reading strategies to gain meaning. They use conflict resolution techniques found in literature and apply it to a real world situation. They discover how important...
Curated OER
Writers and the Old South Myth
Young scholars are introduced to authors of the South. In groups, they compare and contrast the pastoral and counter pastoral traditions present in some forms of Southern literature. They use a database to examine the covers of the...
Curated OER
Easy to Read
Learners compare reading passages in paragraph form to book form. They determine that the reading passages on the state assessments are no more difficult than the books they choose to read. They turn their favorite books into reading...