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ALEX Lesson Plans
Subject: English Language Arts (6), or English Language Arts (6), or Social Studies (6), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: See Me, Hear Me, Understand Me: Franklin D. Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor Address
Description: The viewing goals for this lesson were for students to use a visual text, Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy" speech (played first without sound), to identify visual cues & understand why he may have chosen to use certain gestures, facial expressions, & body language to communicate his message. I wanted students to view & identify what an effective speaker does when speaking formally. By noticing & analyzing visual cues, I wanted students to infer the purpose of his speech & intended audience.
The listening goals for this lesson were for students to listen to FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech (after watching it first with no sound), and discriminate, through his chosen words, the purpose of his speech & point of view. Students were asked to listen to FDR's use of voice & tone to understand his message. In the group conversations that followed, my goal was for students to listen to & consider the perspectives/ideas of others & work together to analyze what they heard that made this a formal speech.
The speaking goals for the lesson were for students to react through speaking to the video clip & apply characteristics of FDR's formal speaking to their own formal speaking by considering gestures, facial expressions, body language, voice, tone, & specific vocabulary to communicate purpose & point of view. In segment one, my goal was for students to notice how, through listening/viewing, FDR communicated his message & viewpoint, not simply the topic of his message.
Subject: English Language Arts (6), or English Language Arts (6), or Social Studies (6), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Is Separate Equal? The Role of School Integration in the Civil Rights Movement
Description: Students will read and do research in order to build their background knowledge regarding school integration. Students will use various websites and view online videos to develop an understanding of segregation and integration of schools during the Civil Rights Movement. Students will then write and publish a picture book about school integration.
Subject: English Language Arts (6), or English Language Arts (6), or Mathematics (6 - 7), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: An Interest.....ing Math Lesson
Description: Eventually everyone will need to borrow money for one reason or another. A good understanding of how interest works will go a long way when applying for a loan. In this lesson students will complete a KWL chart about the purchase of a new vehicle. Students will visit several Websites where they will be able to practice computing simple interest. Then students will have an opportunity to compute simple interest problems that are located in a interactive whiteboard presentation. Students will also answer several written questions about simple interest. They will also create a presentation that will contain information that they gathered during one of the activities that are included in this lesson.
Subject: English Language Arts (6), or English Language Arts (6), or Science (6)
Title: Just Breezy
Description: In this lesson, students will learn about sea breezes and land breezes. They will complete demonstrations and work in groups as they investigate how air is affected by the surfaces below it.This lesson plan was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science, GEMS Project funded by the Malone Family Foundation.
Subject: English Language Arts (5 - 6), or English Language Arts (5 - 6), or Mathematics (6 - 7)
Title: I Scream for Ice Cream!
Description: In this lesson, students will figure out how many different combinations of ice cream flavors and cones they can make. Students will work cooperatively to make the different combinations. They will use various materials to actually make the combinations. The students will also need to include in writing how their group came up with these combinations, and if they noticed any kind of short cut to help them out.This lesson plan was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science, GEMS Project funded by the Malone Family Foundation.
Subject: English Language Arts (5 - 6), or English Language Arts (5 - 8), or Technology Education (3 - 8)
Title: Author Trading Cards
Description: In this lesson students conduct print and Internet research to gather information about a contempory author. Students create an author trading card featuring this information and then collect and/or trade these cards as they select reading material.
Subject: English Language Arts (7), or English Language Arts (5 - 7), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Understanding Comics
Description: Using the book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud as the primary resource, this unit focuses on comics as a tool for communication. Students participate in activities which include journal and essay writing, a graphic organizer, and a distance learning field trip.
Subject: English Language Arts (6), or English Language Arts (6), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Personification in Poetry
Description: Students will explore the use of personification in published poetry and write a poem using personification. They will use clay animation to produce a short video of their poem.
Subject: English Language Arts (6 - 7), or English Language Arts (6 - 7), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: The Camelot Times: Writing a Newspaper
Description: As part of a unit on Arthurian literature and medieval culture, students imagine they are reporters living in the realm of King Arthur and create newsletters/newspapers based on their study and research.
Subject: English Language Arts (6), or English Language Arts (6), or Social Studies (6), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Christopher Paul Curtis and His Books: Bud, Not Buddy and The Watson's Go to Birmingham
Description: This interdisciplinary lesson on two books by C.P. Curtis features students in one classroom (or group) reading one of the books while the other class (or group) reads the other novel. Each class then divides into groups and researches the time period of its novel and develops presentations designed to encourage the reading of the second novel. These presentations are then presented to the other class.
Subject: English Language Arts (6), or English Language Arts (6), or Mathematics (4 - 5), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Line of Symmetry
Description: During this lesson, students will use a hands-on method to identify lines of symmetry. Each student will create individual lines of symmetry by using their name. Creations are unique and individualized for each student. Students will also learn more details about lines of symmetry by navigating the Internet. Students will do online activities to reinforce what they have learned about lines of symmetry.
Subject: Character Education (K - 12), or English Language Arts (6), or English Language Arts (6), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: A Hero by Any Other Name. . .
Description: In conjunction with a study of literary or national heroes or in recognition of 9/11 week, students select a hero from among their family and friends, gather information about him/her, and prepare a multimedia presentation of their research.
Subject: English Language Arts (6), or English Language Arts (6), or Social Studies (6), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Fighting for Gender and Racial Equality
Description: In this lesson students will examine the lives of key leaders and events in the fight for gender and racial equality at the turn of the 20th century. Through this inquiry study students will choose one of these leaders or events to research. The research content will be the basis of a written summary on an individual or event. The students will also create a visual aide or role-play relating the life and times of the individual or event.
Subject: English Language Arts (7 - 8), or English Language Arts (6 - 8), or Information Literacy (K - 12), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Newspapers: Facts and Opinions
Description: In order to sharpen a student's understanding of the differences between facts and opinions, this lesson incorporates both the close reading of a newspaper and the writing of a factual article and a letter to the editor.
Subject: English Language Arts (6), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: "The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven" -- A Lesson on Verbs
Description: Using the poem "The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven" written by Jack Prelutsky, students will explore verbs, synonyms, and poetry.
Subject: English Language Arts (6)
Title: My Own Kingdom
Description: This lesson requires students to write a descriptive essay and make an illustration of their own imaginary kingdom and share with the class. This lesson can be done after reading about Leslie's and Jesse's kingdom from the book, Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson (or any other imaginative kingdom).
Thinkfinity Lesson Plans
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Star Wars creator George Lucas was born in 1944.
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Description: Students use the Hero's Journey interactive to describe how Luke Skywalker meets each stage of his journey, and then brainstorm other works that use the formula.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: The Poet's Voice: Langston Hughes and You
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Description: This unit of seven lessons, from EDSITEment, introduces students to a poet's voice. Students develop a general definition of voice in poetry, and analyze and appreciate the poetic voice of Langston Hughes in particular. Included are writing and discussion activities, in which students either write a poem expressing their own voice (as developed in a journal), or write about one of the qualities of Langston Hughes's poetic voice (as explored in class discussion).
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Write letters that make things happen!
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Description: In a small group or as individuals, students write letters related to a unit of study or particular topic they have studied.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Cosmic Oranges: Observation and Inquiry Through Descriptive Writing and Art
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Description: Students will eat up this lesson about oranges as they practice the skills that help them investigate and make detailed observations for descriptive purposes.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Creative Writing Through Wordless Picture Books
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Description: Students are exposed to wordless picture books and begin developing story lines, both orally and in writing, using an online, interactive story map.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Avalanche, Aztek, or Bravada? A Connotation Minilesson
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Description: Students examine familiar car names for underlying connotations then proceed through a series of steps, increasing their control over language, until they select words with powerful connotations in their own writing.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Writing a Flashback and Flash-Forward Story Using Movies and Texts as Models
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Description: Using the film The Sandlot, students are introduced to the literary devices of flashbacks and flash-forwards. They then write their own stories using those devices.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Proverbs: At Home and around the World
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Description: In this lesson, students work with proverbs from home and from around the world, exploring how these maxims are tied to a cultures values and everyday experience.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Reciprocal Revision: Making Peer Feedback Meaningful
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Description: Interpreting art is a subjective process. In this lesson, students write written responses analyzing a work of art and use feedback from their peers to revise or confirm their initial responses.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: In 1952, Paul Fleischman was born on this day.
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Description: Some of Fleishman's memories in his essay '' My House of Voices'' are shared with the class. Students then write a descriptive essay that gives a tour of the voices in their homes, school, etc.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Picture Books as Framing Texts: Research Paper Strategies for Struggling Writers
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Description: Students use picture books as framing texts for research, freeing them from the language of encyclopedia sources and allowing them to focus their attention on the content of their papers.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Character Clash: A Minilesson on Paragraphing and Dialogue
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Description: Students learn about paragraphing conventions in dialogue by revising their own writing.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Battling for Liberty: Tecumseh's and Patrick Henry's Language of Resistance
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Description: Students study Patrick Henry's '' Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death'' speech and the ways Native Americans also resisted oppression through rhetoric and action.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: The Big Bad Wolf: Analyzing Point of View in Texts
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Description: Was the Big Bad Wolf really all that bad? This lesson encourages students to analyze multiple viewpoints, view texts from different angles, and recognize gaps in narrative.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising
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Description: By looking at advertising and mass media critically, students begin to understand how the media oppresses certain groups, convinces people to purchase certain products, and influences culture.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Promoting Diversity in the Classroom and School Library through Social Action
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Description: Students explore the effects of stereotypes by analyzing children's books. Then they create bookmarks that encourage readers to question the assumptions of stereotyped books and to seek out matching, balanced texts.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Story Character Homepage
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Description: Students analyze personal homepages, as well as a character in a book they have read, and then create a homepage for the character.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Author Garc -a M rquez was born on this day.
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Description: Students take place in a collaborative creative writing activity to begin to understand the hallmarks of the literary style known as magical realism.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Exploring Free Speech and Persuasion with Nothing But the Truth
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Description: Students read Avi's Nothing But the Truth and examine the First Amendment and student rights, and then decide whether the rights of the novel's protagonist, Philip, are violated.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Timelines and Texts: Motivating Students to Read Nonfiction
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Description: In an effort to help motivate students to read nonfiction, students are challenged to use a timeline to help them name the year when certain products were invented.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
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Description: In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students explore the artistry that helped make Washington Irving our nation's first literary master. They ponder the mystery of what happened to Ichabod Crane, a mystery that now haunts every Halloween.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Metaphorical Gold: Mining the Gold Rush for Stories
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Description: In this EDSITEment lesson, students research the Gold Rush era to provide authentic background for their own fictional prose. By mining online databases for primary texts and period photographs, students can explore the Klondike Stampede and glean from their visit sufficient period details to help them create their own narratives based on the Gold Rush. While the emphasis of this lesson is on history and research rather than literature, selections from Jack London's The Call of the Wild are used to provide focus and structure for students research in online databases of primary sources, and to serve as models of vivid narrative prose for students own stories.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Book Report Alternative: Summary, Symbol, and Analysis in Bookmarks
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Description: Students make bookmarks on computers and share their ideas with other readers at their school, while practicing summarizing, recognizing symbols, and writing reviews all for an authentic audience.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Reading and Writing Workshop: Freak the Mighty
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Description: Students use a variety of reading and writing strategies as they read Rodman Philbrick's Freak the Mighty.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817.
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Description: Students make mental '' snapshots'' of a natural setting, then capture the details of their setting by writing and then creating a class booklet of the nature walk.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Children's publisher John Newbery was born in 1713.
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Description: Each student chooses a book that is special and writes a short story about why it deserves special mention. Students can plan the pages of their own stories and then make a Stapleless Book or use the ReadWriteThink Printing Press.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: The first Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929.
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Description: Students make lists of their favorite and least favorite movies and brainstorm qualities that make a film good or bad. Next, students write a movie review for a film they have seen.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: An Exploration of Text Sets: Supporting All Readers
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Description: Students create text sets on a high interest topic and use the texts to practice three strategies for reading for information.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Choose Your Own Adventure: A Hypertext Writing Experience
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Description: Students analyze '' choose your own adventure'' stories and brainstorm to develop setting, characters, and plots for their own adventures stories and related Websites.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Proverbs: Contemporary Proverbs
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Description: This lesson challenges students to craft more apparent meanings for traditional maxims by updating proverbs from around the world and writing proverbs of their own.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Today is World Poetry Day.
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Description: Students read and respond to Billy Collins' poem '' Introduction to Poetry.'' Students then write about a favorite poem and imagine the perfect way to read it.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Shared Spelling Strategies
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Description: Students increase their spelling accuracy and retention, while preserving fluency, by using sound, sight recall, and analyzing strategies instead of memorizing words, as they deal with spelling during drafting.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Jack London's ''The Call of the Wild'': ''Nature Faker''?
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Description: In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students analyze Jack London's The Call of the Wild. They take a stand on whether London can be called a nature faker and on what he is attempting to communicate through his portrayal of Buck. They support their stands with historical evidence or evidence from the text. Finally, students write an essay, complete with hypothesis and textual support, on London's approach to the animal story in The Call of the Wild.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Listening to History
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Description: This unit of four lessons, from EDSITEment, is designed to help students tap the resource of family stories and local history by conducting oral history interviews with family members. Through a series of classroom activities, the lessons introduce students to the riches historians can discover in firsthand recollections, help them choose a topic and prepare for a productive family interview, provide tips for conducting and recording the interview, and offer suggestions for sharing their family stories in a historical narrative or report.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Imagine That! Playing with Genre through Newspapers and Short Stories
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Description: Students identify genre characteristics for short stories and newspaper articles then practice both genres by turning a short story into a news article and an article into a short story.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: On this date in 1901, Andrew Carnegie gave $5.2 million to New York City libraries.
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Description: Students write expository and persuasive pieces with the help of the Persuasion Map and Essay Map interactives, and compare the essential features of the two modes of writing.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Celebrate Halloween!
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Description: Students research information on Halloween, create masks or costumes from a text they are reading, or write a narrative essay describing their best Halloween ever.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: A Case for Reading-Examining Challenged and Banned Books
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Description: This ReadWriteThink-reviewed website, provided by Plainfield Community School Corporation, contains a WebQuest that explores the issues of censorship pertaining to the occult content of the popular Harry Potter novels. Students can take on the roles of concerned citizens, public librarians, school librarians, and fans of Harry Potter and decide whether the books should be banned from the public library.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Subject: Language Arts
Title: A Pictures Worth a Thousand Words: From Image to Detailed Narrative
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Description: The old clich ' , , , '' A picture is worth a thousand words'' is put to the test when students write their own narrative interpretations of events shown in an image.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Book Reviews, Annotation, and Web Technology
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Description: Students work in groups to create annotated book reviews with links to topics of interest related to their book.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Creative Communication Frames: Discovering Similarities between Writing and Art
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Description: Graphic organizers assist the development of comparative vocabulary and generate discussions of analogy and metaphor in art as students go on a real or virtual tour of an art gallery.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: In 1847, Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula was born.
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Description: Students brainstorm the superstitions they know and small groups research one of the superstitions to determine its origin and meaning or purpose. Students can write about the superstition using the Mystery Cube interactive.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Poems That Tell a Story: Narrative and Persona in the Poetry of Robert Frost
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Description: In this four-lesson unit, from EDSITEment, students read, discuss, and analyze selected poems by Robert Frost. The activities that make up this unit encourage students to draw inferences about a poem's speaker based on evidence contained within the poem and to gather evidence supporting those inferences.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Inquiry on the Internet: Evaluating Web Pages for a Class Collection
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Description: Students use Internet search engines and Web analysis checklists to evaluate online resources then write annotations that explain how and why the resources will be valuable to the class.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Expository Escapade Detectives Handbook
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Description: Students create a Detective's Handbook based on a detective mystery they have read. The handbooks include expository and descriptive writing, as well as a letter.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Mister Rogers' Neighborhood premiered in 1967.
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Description: After thinking about TV shows, books, and movies from their childhood, students write about what they remember and revisit how they feel about it at an older age.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12
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