ALEX Lesson Plans

Subject: Character Education (K - 12), or English Language Arts (8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: The Diary of Anne Frank: How Would I Survive?
Description: After reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Diary of Anne Frank, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, student groups examine the coping strategies of the people in the Secret Annex. Then, each student develops a personal survival plan to be included in a group slideshow presentation which addresses this question: How would I survive if I experienced the same stressful situation? Additionally, the students discuss current world situations that necessitate coping strategies.

Thinkfinity Lesson Plans

Subject: Language Arts
Title: The Big Bad Wolf: Analyzing Point of View in Texts Add Bookmark
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: Promoting Diversity in the Classroom and School Library through Social Action Add Bookmark
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,Mathematics
Title: Can It Be? Add Bookmark
Description: In this lesson, one of a multi-part unit from Illuminations, students participate in activities in which they focus on connections between mathematics and children s literature. They listen to the story The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, and then explore and interpret the concept of averages.
Thinkfinity Partner: Illuminations
Grade Span: 6,7,8

Subject: Language Arts
Title: The Pied Piper led the children out of Hamelin in 1376. Add Bookmark
Description: After listening to The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents , students compare Pratchett's version with Browning's version and discuss how perspective changes the story.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Edgar Allen Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and the Unreliable Narrator Add Bookmark
Description: Students consider a variety of narrative stances in Edgar Allen Poe's short story, Tell Tale Heart, and Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. They examine how Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allan Poe used narration to create their intended effect in the reader.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8

Subject: Language Arts
Title: Poems That Tell a Story: Narrative and Persona in the Poetry of Robert Frost Add Bookmark
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: Analyzing Advice as an Introduction to Shakespeare Add Bookmark
Description: Popular culture provides an introduction to Shakespeare's poetic devices in this lesson, which asks students to explore an excerpt from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8