ALEX Lesson Plans

Subject: English Language Arts (9), or English Language Arts (9), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: To Buy or Not to Buy...
Description: This lesson is designed to give students a hands-on experience in advertising a product. Students will learn the various advertising and propaganda techniques. Students will then work in groups to create a commercial advertising their own product.

Subject: Business, Management, and Administration (9 - 12), or English Language Arts (9), or English Language Arts (8 - 9)
Title: Cybersafety
Description: This lesson is designed to increase student awareness of the concept that there are dangers associated with Internet usage. This is a Commerce and Information Technology lesson plan. This lesson was adapted from iSafe.org and personalized for my school setting.

Subject: English Language Arts (9), or English Language Arts (8 - 9), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: Travel Newsletter
Description: In a role as the director of tourism for a student-selected city, state, or country, students conduct online research to create travel newsletters enticing tourists to visit their chosen areas. Newsletter content includes location, historical background, primary industry, attractions, and accommodations. Word processing skills implemented include newspaper columns, word art, graphic lines, serif vs. sans serif fonts, and justification.

Subject: English Language Arts (9 - 10), or English Language Arts (9 - 10), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: Identifying Parallel Structure in Sentences
Description: After textbook and online instruction in parallel construction, students examine Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence for parallelism before writing their own paragraphs.

Thinkfinity Lesson Plans

Subject: Arts,Language Arts
Title: Childhood Through the Looking-Glass Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson from EDSITEment explores the vision of childhood created by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland. Students begin by looking at Carroll's photographs of the real Alice for whom Carroll imagined his story and compare the image of childhood that he captured on film with images of children in our culture. Then students read Alice in Wonderland with special attention to the illustrations that Carroll made for his book, and explore the relationship between words and pictures by creating an Alice illustration of their own. Next, for contrast, students compare Carroll's vision of childhood with that presented by the Romantic poet William Blake in his illuminated Songs of Innocence and Experience. Finally, students consider the interplay of image and text in their own favorite children's literature and how the vision of childhood presented there compares to their experiences as children. Several pieces of literature appropriate for use with this lesson are suggested.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8

Subject: Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Evaluating Eyewitness Reports Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson, from EDSITEment, offers students experience in drawing historical meaning from eyewitness accounts that present a range of different perspectives. Students begin with a case study including alternative reports of a single event: the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Students compare two newspaper reports on the fire and two memoirs of the fire written many decades later, with an eye on how these accounts complement and compete with one another, and how these sources can be used to draw historical meaning from them. Students then apply the lessons learned in their investigation of the eyewitness accounts of the Chicago fire by considering a unique eyewitness account: the diary kept by a Confederate girl when her Tennessee town was occupied by Union troops during the Civil War.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Who Was Cinque? Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson, from EDSITEment, focuses on Cinque, the leader of the 1839 Amistad revolt. The lesson draws on a variety of documentary resources to examine how he was perceived by Americans on both sides of the debate over slavery.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Identifying and Understanding the Fallacies Used in Advertising Add Bookmark
Description: Students examine the fallacies that surround them every day, deconstruct fallacious images and messages in advertisements, and demonstrate their understanding of the fallacies through multimedia presentations.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Brochures: Writing for Audience and Purpose Add Bookmark
Description: Students create brochures on the same topic as another piece of writing they have done, highlighting how shifting purposes and audiences creates changes in their strategies as writers.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Designing Effective Poster Presentations Add Bookmark
Description: Students explore the genre of posters, review informational writing and visual design, and then design poster presentations to share in class or at a school-wide fair.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Magazine Redux: An Exercise in Critical Literacy Add Bookmark
Description: Paper and pixels get compared in this lesson in which students compare both printed and online versions of a magazine.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts - Reading - Social Studies - Geography
Title: Reading Between the Lines Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson, from Xpeditions, helps students evaluate news stories by determining their sources and recognizing biases or viewpoints. In order to become well-informed adults, it is a good idea for students to develop the habit of reading the news and keeping informed on important topics, such as geography, the environment, and world events. With the overwhelming amount of information available both in print and online, it is important that students learn to read news stories with a critical eye.
Thinkfinity Partner: National Geographic Education
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts,Philosophy,Social Studies
Title: Profiles in Courage: Harper Lee's ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' Add Bookmark
Description: In this lesson, one of a multi-part unit from EDSITEment, students read Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird carefully with an eye for all instances of courage, but particularly those of moral courage. They then consider how To Kill A Mockingbird frames issues of courage and cowardice against the backdrop of the American South in the 1930s.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Exploring Literacy in Cyberspace Add Bookmark
Description: It's not just words on a page (or screen) reading comprehension involves making sense of the text. When students become aware of the analytical strategies they are using, they can explore the similarities and differences between making sense of print and making sense of a website.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: The New York Times used the slogan '' All the News That's Fit to Print.'' Add Bookmark
Description: After discussing newspapers and their different points of view, students choose a current event, read editorials on the event, and share them with the class to identify the editor's point of view.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Analyzing Character in Hamlet through Epitaphs Add Bookmark
Description: Students create epitaphs for characters from a tragedy, such as Hamlet.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Beyond What I Did on Vacation : Exploring the Genre of Travel Writing Add Bookmark
Description: After reading and analyzing short examples of travel writing and discussing conventions of the genre, students write their own travel articles.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12