Dec 12
tengrrlclassroom activity, ReadWriteThink
The last days of 2011 are counting down, and it’s likely that your days in the classroom for 2011 are even fewer! As you’re planning for the last days of the calendar year, consider using ReadWriteThink interactives for one of these fun, winter activities:
- Choose an animal you think about during the winter (like penguins, polar bears, or snowshoe rabbit), and explore its habits and life cycle with the Animal Inquiry interactive.
- Use the Resume Generator to create a resume for a character from a favorite story or song. What would Scrooge list on his resume?
- Compose Shape Poems with the bus for the last day of school. Students can talk about all the things they hope to do during the winter break—after they ride home on the school bus for the last time in 2011.
- Have students map significant personal events they remember from previous winter holidays with the Graphic Map.
- Write a class alphabet book of activities to try during the winter holidays with the Alphabet Organizer.
- Ask students to think of a favorite event that happens during the winter break, and compose Acrostic Poems about it.
- Create Character Trading Cards for characters from winter-themed or holiday-themed books or songs. Imagine a trading card for the Baby New Year!
- Reflect on all that has happened since the start of the school year in a class newspaper, created with the ReadWriteThink Printing Press.
- Explore school days and winter vacation in a Diamante Poem that unites the two opposing topics.
- Use the Profile Publisher to mock up social networking profiles, yearbook profiles, or newspaper or magazine profiles for characters from winter-themed or holiday-themed books or songs. What would Frosty the Snowman list on his Facebook profile?
This list also posted in the Reading & Language Arts Group in the Thinkfinity Community.
Jul 12
tengrrlclassroom activity, composition, ReadWriteThink, visual rhetoric tagxedo, word clouds, wordle
You probably would have guessed that raven was one of the most frequently used words in Poe’s “The Raven,” but the Wordle word cloud on the right makes the impact of that word visually obvious. Wordle is a free tool that can make a word cloud out of any text that is pasted into a form or by using the text on a webpage. It includes some choices for formatting, so that you can change the color and layout of the words. You can also omit commonly used words. The final cloud can be printed or saved.
Last week, Edutopia shared some ideas for using Wordle in the classroom, as part of their New Teacher Boot Camp. In addition to checking out the Edutopia resources, take a look at these blog posts for more ideas on using word clouds for reading and writing activities in the classroom:
This post is the introduction from “July 11 to 16 on ReadWriteThink.” Read the rest of the post on Facebook.
Jun 06
tengrrlclassroom activity, lesson plan, ReadWriteThink cynthiarylant, dinosaurs, drjekyll, icecream, lessonplans, Literature, nature, nikkigiovanni, professional communications, storyboarding, summerreading
When learning stops during the summer, students suffer from what is referred to as the summer slide—a loss of ability and knowledge from the close of school in the spring to the reopening in the fall.
Take advantage of the long summer days, and prevent summer learning loss with Thinkfinity’s fun, interactive games and activities. In addition to online games and engaging summertime activities, you’ll find recommended reading lists as well as a discussion forum where parents and educators can interact.
For a review of the resources on ReadWriteThink, watch the new Engaging Students After School and at Home video, and check out the calendar entries, lesson plans, and classroom activities below for more classroom and summer ideas. 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.
[Photo: Red Slide by javcon117, on Flickr]
May 31
tengrrlclassroom activity, lesson plan, ReadWriteThink bee, bullying, calendar, cnn, journalism, Literature, news, poetry, ReadWriteThink, scripps, spelling, walt whitman, whitman
It’s the time of year when spelling exotic words that you’d never use in day-to-day communication is all the rage. The final rounds of the Scripps Spelling Bee take place, with daily coverage on ESPN.
As I wrote in an NCTE Inbox blog post a couple of years ago, the problem is that while spelling has apparently become prime time entertainment, spelling bees still aren’t good pedagogy. A 2007 Washington Post article explains that spelling bees provide limited support to students learning about words and the ways that they work. Sue Ann Gleason, the teacher quoted in the article explains the spelling bees “honor the children who already know how to spell, but they do little to support those who need explicit instruction.”
So while the Spelling Bee may get kids and their families interested in spelling for a few days, take a look at the spelling lesson plans and activities on ReadWriteThink for ways to support every student (not just the ones who can spell funny words like weissnichtwo. And check out the calendar entries, lesson plans, and classroom activities below for more classroom-ready ideas. Have a great week!
New Resources
- Listen to the most recent podcasts on ReadWriteThink:
- Are your budding scientists eager to discover what makes plants grow? Check out The Science of Spring from Science NetLinks and watch students’ imaginations bloom.
- Inspire students with some summer reading activities:
- Find more resources to kick off a summer of learning from our partners on Thinkfinity.
From the Calendar
Connecting with Other Teachers
If you have feedback or questions about ReadWriteThink, all you have to do is contact us.
[Photo: Bee by _PaulS_, 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]
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.
Nov 08
tengrrlReadWriteThink
Students explore problem-solving in this new ReadWriteThink lesson, which explores the challenges faced by characters in Ezra Jack Keats’ picture books. After reading a variety of Keats’ books, students explore the problems that the characters face and solutions that they choose through classroom discussion, story mapping, and comparison and contrast of several Keats’ books. The lesson was written by Vanessa Udry of Tolono, Illinois.
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