Apr 03
tengrrlclassroom activity, lesson plan, ReadWriteThink Billie Holiday, Drop Everything and Read, Earth Day, haiku, Marian Anderson, Maya Angelou, Pocahontas, poetry
The first days of April always make me think of the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, and of Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”
So many April poems, it’s little wonder that April is National Poetry Month. This week, ReadWriteThink has poetry activities, lesson plans, and calendar resources to support you. Have a great week!
New Resources
From the Calendar
Connecting with Other Teachers
If you have feedback or questions about ReadWriteThink, all you have to do is contact us. Have a great week!
[Photo:French Lilac Detail by farlane, on Flickr]
Mar 29
tengrrlclassroom activity, lesson plan, ReadWriteThink Anna Sewell, bullying, Cesar Chavez, DEAR, fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen, Libya, Literature, poetry, reading, Spanish, Truman Capote
Hope March is heading out like a lamb for you. After all the snow and rain of the last weeks, we could all use a nice, pleasant transition into April. As you plan your classes for the last days of the month, ReadWriteThink has lesson plans and related resources to support you.
New Resources
From the Calendar
- March 30: Black Beauty author Anna Sewell was born in 1820. Through Sewell’s novel, explore cruelty to animals and extend the discussion to current events. (For grades 3–12)
- March 31: César Chávez was born on this day in 1927. research a civil rights leader and do a creative writing piece, followed by a short story, with their group. (For grades 7–12)
- April 1: April is National Poetry Month! Students are assigned to be “poets of the day” and are provided several models to create, illustrate, and present their different poems to the class. (For grades K–12)
- April 2: Hans Christian Andersen was born on this date in 1805. Compare one of Andersen’s stories to the original story with
the Venn Diagram tool, write fairy tale autobiographies, and explore satire with the movie Shrek. (For grades K–12)
- Look ahead to next week for literacy activities on Maya Angelou, Pocahontas, Billie Holiday, and Marian Anderson.
Connecting with Other Teachers
If you have feedback or questions about ReadWriteThink, all you have to do is contact us. Have a great week!
—Traci Gardner
[Photo: Young Irish Lamb Sitting. by moonjazz, on Flickr]
Mar 20
tengrrlclassroom activity, lesson plan, ReadWriteThink Caldecott, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, chickens, earthquake, haiku, Kate DiCamillo, nuclear energy, poetry, Robert Frost, Tennessee Williams, tsunami
Spring is finally here. National Poetry Month is just weeks away. No matter what grade level you teach, ReadWriteThink has lesson plans and related resources to support you.
New Resources
From the Calendar
- March 21: It’s World Poetry Day! Explore a poem by Billy Collins, create themed poetry collections, annotate favorite poems, or try your hand at acrostics, diamante, letter, or shape poems. (For grades K–12)
- March 22: Randolph Caldecott was born on March 22, 1846. Create a classroom literary award modeled after the Caldecott Medal (For grades K–12)
- March 24: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof premiered in New York in 1955. Introduce students to the characteristics of drama with Reader’s Theater. (For grades 5–12)
- March 25: Celebrate Kate DiCamillo’s birthday today. After examining the characters in one of DiCamillo’s stories, students write original short stories featuring animals as central characters. (For grades 3–6)
- March 26: Poet Robert Frost was born in 1874. Celebrate Frost’s birthday and his poetry by exploring his innovation in the sonnet form. (For grades 3–12)
- Look ahead to next week for resources on National Poetry Month and the birthdays of César Chávez, Anna Sewell, and Hans Christian Andersen.
Connecting with Other Teachers
If you have feedback or questions about ReadWriteThink, all you have to do is contact us. Have a great week!
Mar 13
tengrrlclassroom activity, lesson plan, ReadWriteThink
We’ve set our clocks forward for Daylight Savings Time, and Spring is nearly here. What will you do in class this week? Here are some resources from ReadWriteThink to support you.
New Resources
From the Calendar
Connecting with Other Teachers
If you have feedback or questions about ReadWriteThink, all you have to do is contact us. Have a great week!
—Traci Gardner
Mar 13
tengrrlclassroom activity, community building, composition, lesson plan, ReadWriteThink comics, graphic novels, movies, NaNoWriMo, podcasts, Script Frenzy, scripts
If you are thinking of challenging students to take part in the Young Writers Program (YWP) for Script Frenzy, you’ll want some resources to support the project.
As I explained in more detail yesterday, Script Frenzy is the free event that asks writers to spend April writing a script for a screenplay, stage play, TV show, short film, comic, or graphic novel.
The YWP site has information for teachers that includes lesson plans for all age levels walk students through the basic tasks from setting their goals to building conflict and developing dialogue. You can even apply to borrow computers for classroom use during the month—deadline March 15, so hurry!
Help students find the focus for their scripts by trying one of these ReadWriteThink lessons (plus one from Thinkfinity partner EDSITEment):
Cross-posted to the Reading and Language Arts Discussion Group in the Thinkfinity Community and to the NCTE Community ReadWriteThink eGroup and Graphic Novels eGroup.
[Photo: Day 30 - Fade In: by Kurt Thomas Hunt, on Flickr]
Aug 30
tengrrlclassroom activity, community building, lesson plan
How do you take a group of individual, unrelated people and connect them in a supportive community quickly?
It’s a question teacher face at the beginning of every term. Here are some answers.
Begin by establishing reasons for students to connect. You can’t wave a magic wand and build community. It takes work. What’s the Trick to Building Community in the Classroom? outlines four lessons that lay the ground work for connections, no matter what class you teach or what other community building activities you use.
In the writing classroom, personal stories can be the best way to build quick connections. The writing task can make the connection, as explained in Building Community in 15 Minutes a Day. As students embark on a writing experience, they can build fast connections by talking about their challenges and successes together.
In a similar way, ask students to talk about their work as writers—their best work, their pet peeves, and their biggest challenges. Five Ways to Learn about Students This Fall outlines specific activities that ask students to share their history as writers in this way. Lesson plans for Weekly Writer’s Blogs, Technology Autobiographies, and Extended Metaphors about Writing encourage students to build a community of writers as they reflect on their own experiences.
Tend the fledgling connections writers make with activities that talk explicitly about community. Whether they look at communities outside the classroom or those at school, such discussions can ensure you students continue to Build Community After the First Day.
[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by luc legay]
Jul 13
tengrrlclassroom activity, lesson plan, social media assignments, twitter
Since Twitter is a communications tool, there are infinite ways to use the site in the English classroom.
These two excellent videos provide introductions to using Twitter with students that are polished enough to share at staff meetings and professional development sessions:
- The Twitter Experiment – UT Dallas is one of the first stories of a teacher using Twitter in the classroom to hit wide distribution . The YouTube video includes discussion and feedback from Dr. Monica Rankin and students in her history class. Rankin’s focus is on increasing discussion and class participation.
- Twitter in the Classroom? shares details on a partnership between University of Minnesota and Roosevelt High School to use Twitter to communicate and engage students.
In addition to giving students some basic tutorials and guides, it’s useful to go over the information from College Student’s Guide: Twitter 101. The page shares advice on how to make choices wisely so that students are taken seriously when they use Twitter as part of their classes.
For some more concrete classroom activities, look at Twitter Resources for the Classroom and Ten Ways to Use Twitter with Colleagues, both from Bedford Bits.
You’ll also find useful examples in these articles:
[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by rockinfree]
May 20
tengrrlclassroom activity, lesson plan, Literature, visual rhetoric analysis, assignments, critical thinking, Shakespeare
Tara Seale posted details on a fun visual rhetoric and writing activity she recently used with students on the NCTE Secondary Section Blog. The activity, inspired by a similar task described by Shelbie Witte, asks students to design and explain a tattoo for a character from Romeo and Juliet. The blog entry includes links to the assignment sheet, the rubric, a sample essay, and a number of sample tattoo designs.
Connecting to Other Literary Tattoos
The assignment can be easily linked to one of the Literary Lists of “Ten Best” from the UK newspaper The Guardian, which I wrote about earlier this month.
Share Ten of the best tattoos in literature with students, or a few of the items listed in The Guardian article with students to get them warmed up. They may know of other literary tattoos to add to the list. This evening, I happened to remember Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo. Surely that’s a worthy patch of ink to add.
Other Assignment Possibilities
Naturally, the assignment could be completed for any work of literature. No reason you have to stick to Romeo and Juliet. Nor do you have to stick with characters from a work of literature. What about tattoos for some of the authors you’ve read in class?
If tattoo design isn’t appropriate for the students you teach, just modify the activity. Witte‘s original activity described the tattoos as a mind of modern family crest. Just have students design crests if tattoos would cause uncomfortable conversations with family or administrators.
If you still want the modern-day edge to the activity, have students design a personal logo or icon for a character. Ask students to think of the kind of image someone might post in place of a photo on a Facebook profile or a similar website.
In terms of publication, you can follow Seale‘s technique and have students submit images and an essay, but if you have the resources available, you can try a more technological bent:
- Students might create Powerpoint presentations that layer the different portions of the image together and include text or audio explanations of the items. For instance, for the image in the photo above, the presentation might start with the basic outline of the heart, then shade red, add the flame, and finally add the dagger—each on a separate slide.
- Using basic mouseover Javascript and pop-ups, students might make a webpage which features the image and explains the reason behind different aspects of the design when the viewer drags the mouse over them.
- Use an image maps with alt text, but the length of students’ explanations would be quite limited. Javascript pop-ups would give them more room.
- Publish the designs on Flickr and have students use the “Add Note” feature to identify specific portions of the image and then include related explanations.
No matter what option you choose, the assignment pairs visual aspects with critical thinking and communication. It’s a fun activity that can be used with students from kindergarten to college. Just adjust the requirements to fit students’ abilities and the pedagogical goals of the class.
[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by Mykl Roventine]
Apr 08
tengrrlAmerican Lit, lesson plan, poetry, ReadWriteThink
Another poem I enjoy teaching, Gwendolyn Brooks’s "We Real Cool" has been a powerful tool for discussions of voice and style in the classroom. Like "The Writer," this poem inspired a ReadWriteThink lesson plan, Many Years Later: Responding to Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool.”
The activity that I describe in the lesson, and also in a related English Journal article, “Write Like You Talk (Snapshots),” demonstrated to me how important it is for students to writing from authentic subject position and in their own voice. (You can find out more by reading the EJ article.)
Okay, I admit though, choosing this poem is probably prideful. It’s a poem I like and that I teach well. Further, it led to my first publication in English Journal. Who wouldn’t be pleased about that?
But there’s more. I found about a month ago that the Library of Congress’s Web Guide, "Gwendolyn Brooks: Online Resources," points to my lesson plan. Seriously, scroll down to the lesson plan section and there it is. Okay, it’s just a link, but hey, someone at the Library of Congress thought my lesson was good enough to point to. And it’s all because of that great poem by Gwendolyn Brooks.
Apr 07
tengrrlAmerican Lit, lesson plan, poetry, ReadWriteThink
I’ve liked Richard Wilbur’s "The Writer" since I came across it my first year as a teacher. I may have read the poem earlier, but I don’t have any memories of it.
Instead I remember teaching with it. I guess I’m realizing I have a pattern—I like teaching narrative poems. But this poem in particular always seemed perfect for the writing classroom, with it’s metaphor for what it’s like to be a writer and struggle through attempt after attempt at the right word and the most effective phrase.
If you want to see how I used the poem in the classroom, check out my ReadWriteThink lesson plan: Writing about Writing: An Extended Metaphor Assignment.
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