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ALEX Lesson Plans
Subject: English Language Arts (8 - 9), or English Language Arts (8 - 9), or Social Studies (9)
Title: Fried Green Tomatoes & Cultural Crossroads
Description: Having read Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, students will conduct research through an interview with an elderly person from the community (a field trip to local nursing home facility) to determine the validity of the author’s message (setting, cultural, and historical observations). They will develop interview questions derived from observations and events from the book as a large group. Small student groups will use iPods/MP3s, laptop computers with webcams, or digital cameras to capture pictures, videos, or audio clips from their interview, as well as take notes. On their return, groups will compare facts from the book to findings during interview and collaborate to create a presentation that finds Flagg’s depiction of the Alabama of the Great Depression days credible or not.
Subject: English Language Arts (6 - 8), or English Language Arts (6 - 8), or Information Literacy (K - 12), or Social Studies (7), or Technology Education (6 - 8)
Title: Whose Voice Guides Your Choice?
Description: In this one-two week unit, students explore the role media has in influencing public opinion. Students analyze advertising in print, video, and online formats. An optional visit to the Museum of Television and Radio via distance learning videoconferencing helps students examine the extent to which they are influenced by propaganda.
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.
Thinkfinity Lesson Plans
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues
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Description: Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts,Social Studies
Title: Who Were the Foremothers of Women's Equality?
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Description: This lesson, from EDSITEment, introduces students to the achievements of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the foremothers of women's equality. By studying a variety of primary historical materials, students also learn about some of the lesser-known activists who fought alongside Stanton and Anthony in the formative Women's Rights Movement.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Using the Four-Square Strategy to Define and Identify Poetic Terms
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Description: How do poets play with language? Students will explore some answers to this question as they search through poems for examples of alliteration, assonance, simile, and rhyme.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
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: 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: 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: The first English printer, William Caxton, was born on this day in 1422.
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Description: Students consider how the printing press affects their world by completing a printing inventory, comparing lists, and developing a '' super'' list of all printed materials that they interact with.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8
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,Social Studies
Title: Women's Suffrage: Why the West First?
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Description: In this EDSITEment lesson, students compile information to examine hypotheses explaining why the first nine states to grant full voting rights for women were located in the West. The take a stand, supported by historical evidence, as to whether or not a single theory can explain why the Western states were the first to grant full voting rights to women.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 6,7,8
Subject: Language Arts
Title: ' Black Beauty'' author Anna Sewell was born in 1820.
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Description: Through Sewell's novel, students explore the cruelty to animals and extend the discussion to current events, eventually presenting the information.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
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
Title: Edgar Allen Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and the Unreliable Narrator
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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: Dynamic Duo Text Talks: Examining the Content of Internet Sites
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Description: An Observation and Inquiry Sheet guides students as they analyze and compare their reactions to the value, engagement, and credibility of three websites related to Anne Frank and the Holocaust.
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 - Literature - Language Arts - Story Telling - Social Studies - Geography
Title: New Takes on Old Tales
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Description: In this Xpeditions student activity, students revamp a classic fairy tale so that it takes place in today's world. They base their stories on original fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm.
Thinkfinity Partner: National Geographic Education
Grade Span: K,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Myth and Truth: The First Thanksgiving
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Description: By exploring myths surrounding the Wampanoag, the pilgrims, and the '' First Thanksgiving,'' this lesson asks students to think critically about commonly believed myths regarding the Wampanoag Indians in colonial America.
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
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