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ALEX Lesson Plans
Subject: English Language Arts (8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: African American Poet Research
Description: Students will research the life of an African American poet using print and online resources. Students will present their findings by writing a research paper and creating a PowerPoint presentation.
Subject: English Language Arts (8), or English Language Arts (8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: The Giver - Authority
Description: A unit lesson using the book The Giver by Louis Lowry that will have students be researchers and recorders in the process of finding information on Utopian societies, cults and authority.
Students will complete a Powerpoint, Glogster, essay or news broadcast by the conclusion of the essay.
Subject: English Language Arts (6 - 8), or English Language Arts (7 - 8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Expressing Yourself With Poetry
Description: Two classes at different schools or across the hall share dramatic poetry presentations as part of a poetry unit. Students listen to poetry, practice reading poetry, and (if practical) participate in a distance learning program on poetry. Students then produce a Poetry Alive program that will be shared with another class through video conferencing or video tapes.
Subject: English Language Arts (8), or English Language Arts (8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Integrating Grammar and Literature through Digital Storytelling
Description: In this lesson students create digital stories in cooperative groups using multimedia tools to demonstrate comprehension of the elements of grammar, literature, and technology introduced in the lesson. Students become actively involved in literature, recognize an author's intent, and examine the importance of word choice in writing. This lesson incorporates sentence manipulation, the elements of fiction, storyboarding, and the production of a slideshow presentation.
Subject: English Language Arts (7), or English Language Arts (7 - 8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Researching Mark Twain's Early Life and Experiences
Description: This lesson requires students to use the Internet to research the early life of Mark Twain and the influence of his childhood experiences on his writing. The lesson includes letter writing, reading, role playing, and working in a group to create a slideshow presentation.
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 (6 - 8), or English Language Arts (6 - 8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Who's Who on Olympus and Why Should I Care?
Description: References to mythology extend far beyond the basic exploration of a genre. This unit will serve as an exploration of the creation myth across cultures, an introduction to the major Greek gods and goddesses, and an opportunity to link mythology to today's world. Students will research and create a newsletter on a creation myth and the culture from which it came. They will also plan and present a slideshow presentation about a major god or goddess of ancient Greece, including allusions to him/her in today's world.
Subject: English Language Arts (8), or English Language Arts (8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Hold Fast To Your Dreams: The Sound and Sense of Langston Hughes
Description: Students investigate poetry form as they research the life of Langston Hughes. They perform the lyrics of his poetry, participate in a distance learning program from Cleveland Institute of Music, and produce computer-generated brochures and booklets as they execute this lesson plan.
Subject: Character Education (K - 12), or Counseling and Guidance (K - 12), or English Language Arts (7), or English Language Arts (7 - 8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Career Discovery: Preparing a Resume
Description: As part of a career discovery unit, middle school students examine the need to prepare a resume and the potential consequences of giving false information in a resume. Using an online resume wizard designed for middle schoolers, students prepare their first resume. This lesson can be broken into three smaller 30-minute lessons (Step 1, Steps 2-5, and Steps 6-7).
Subject: English Language Arts (7 - 9), or English Language Arts (7 - 9), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Oral Presentation of Favorite Celebrity
Description: Using the Internet to research facts about a favorite celebrity, students gain the organizational and oral presentation skills needed to successfully deliver an effective speech and slideshow presentation.
Subject: English Language Arts (8), or English Language Arts (8), or Information Literacy (K - 12), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Introduction to African American Poets
Description: In this lesson student groups will research selected African American poets using the Alabama Virtual Library. Each group will present its findings according to a chosen format.
Subject: English Language Arts (8), or English Language Arts (8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Autobiographical Magazines
Description: This assignment is designed for students to tell about themselves through writing and creative media. The students compile original articles and illustrations into an autobiographical magazine.
Subject: English Language Arts (8), or English Language Arts (8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: The Rookie Project
Description: This is a three-part writing project which includes a research paper, a creative short story, and a movie review inspired by the movie, The Rookie. The lesson is easily adapted to other appropriate films of similar themes.
Subject: Character Education (K - 12), or English Language Arts (7 - 8), or English Language Arts (7 - 8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Riddles in the Dark
Description: Riddles can be challenging to solve and even more challenging to write. After reading the riddles used by Gollum to try to ensnare Bilbo in chapter five of Tolkien's The Hobbit and those used by Bilbo to outwit Gollum, students use their wit and cunning to author a riddle pop-up book.
Subject: English Language Arts (7 - 8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Career Exploration for the Middle School Student
Description: This is a technology-based career guidance project during which students select a career to research on the Internet. Students will create slideshow presentations of information on selected careers and present the slideshows to the class.
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.
Subject: English Language Arts (8), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: What about Steinbeck's The Pearl?
Description: In this three week unit on the novel The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, students examine and discuss the characteristics of a novel, compare and contrast the novel to folk tales and short stories, write chapter summaries and essays, and conduct Internet research to prepare slideshow presentations on related topics, including both those reflecting cultural differences of the novel's characters and those issues involving the economic principle of supply and demand.
Thinkfinity Lesson Plans
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: Pictures in Words: Poems of Tennyson and Noyes
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Description: In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students explore how poets Tennyson and Noyes use words to paint vivid and memorable pictures. They describe how word pictures emphasize or qualify the meanings of their poems.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8
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: 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: Doodle Splash: Using Graphics to Discuss Literature
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Description: Students keep a doodle journal while reading short stories by a common author. In small groups, students then combine their doodles into a graphic representation of the text.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: E-pals Around the World
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Description: With e-pals, students develop real-life writing and social experiences, learn the format of a friendly letter and parts of an e-mail message, and discover other cultures, languages, and geographic areas.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Mickey Mouse appeared in his first animated feature.
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Description: Students create a short, humorous story with at least one action character, and then use the Comic Creator to make a flipbook.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8
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: Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry Project
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Description: Students explore a variety of resources as they learn about the Holocaust. Working collaboratively, they investigate the materials, prepare oral responses, and produce a topic-based newspaper to complete their research.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: The Reading Performance: Understanding Fluency Through Oral Interpretation
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Description: Students discuss prosody, gain a new appreciation for literature intended for oral performance, and participate in activities that instill the value of technology in shaping their appreciation of literature.
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, Social Studies
Title: What Makes a Poem an Epic?
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Description: This student interactive, from an EDSITEment lesson, prompts students to identify examples of the epic hero cycle from a story with which they are familiar.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
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: 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: Book Report Alternative: Comic Strips and Cartoon Squares
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Description: Students must think critically to create comic strips highlighting six important scenes from a book they have read.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Louisa May Alcott was born in 1832.
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Description: Students brainstorm important events and people that might serve as the beginning of an interesting piece of writing. They then use the Bio-Cube to plan their writing and write an essay about a memorable person.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12
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: Weaving the Threads: Integrating Poetry Annotation and Web Technology
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Description: Students read a poem by a Native American, explore Native American culture and then create a Website that explains words and phrases from the poem.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
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: Find favorite book picks in the Children's Choices.
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Description: Students create lists of their favorite books and then the class creates a '' Top Picks'' class booklist. Students can use the Book Cover Creator to create a book jacket for their favorite book.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2,3,4,5,6
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