ALEX Lesson Plan Resources

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ALEX Lesson Plans  
Subject: English Language Arts (9)
Title: Let's take a walk...Peter Jenkins style.
Description: Students will complete a research-based creative project that has them envisioning where they would go and what they would if they walked across America like the author Peter Jenkins in the novel A Walk across America.  This project is cross-curricular as it has students working on budgets, using maps and place-specific information, and writing narratives.  This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

Subject: English Language Arts (9)
Title: "The Princess Bride" Chapter 1: As You Wish
Description: Before, during and after reading activities for Chapter 1 of "The Princess Bride" for students to cite textual evidence. A journal entry at the beginning of lesson to generate pre-reading ideas, during reading questioning, and after reading activity to teach citing evidence. This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

Subject: English Language Arts (9 - 11)
Title: Com'on Down To Eatonville, Florida
Description: You are Mayor Joe Starks from the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and you want more people to relocate to Eatonville, Florida. Identify five amenities that may make Eatonville attractive to African-Americans looking for a place to establish themselves. Using these amenities, draft a thirty to sixty second audio advertisement or draft a one-hundred word advertisement to be published in the Orlando Sentinel.

Subject: English Language Arts (9 - 10)
Title: Unfortunate Fortunato
Description: You are a local police detective, your task is to investigate the disappearance of Fortunata. Retrace his steps leading up to his disappearance. Remember to interview anyone that may have seen him that night. After gathering all of your information, write a detailed missing person's report on behalf of Fortunato's family detaining Fortunato's last day on earth.  

Subject: English Language Arts (7 - 10)
Title: Hands, Hands, Hands - Writing a Narrative Essay from the Perspective of a Particular Hand
Description: The teacher will show pictures of six hands to students.  (See attachment)  After a brainstorming session, students will choose one hand that illustrates a particular story from their life.  Then, students will write a two page narrative essay about this story.  These stories will be posted on a class blog to allow for feedback and discussion from classmates.

Subject: English Language Arts (9), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: Novel Study - Independent Reading
Description: Students will choose a novel from a teacher-created reading list. After reading their choice novel, students will prepare a 1-1/2 to 2 minute multimedia presentation to "sell" other students on the novel. In addition, students will prepare a poster advertising their novel for display and a written summary of the novel that identifies various literary elements of the novel.

Subject: English Language Arts (9), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: To Kill a Mockingbird Character Interviews - Podcast
Description: Students will write and produce character interviews based on the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The interviews will be produced as a podcast based on characters from the novel and students' interpretation of the events in the novel, as well as its historical setting. The project will be a conclusion to the class study of the novel.  

Subject: English Language Arts (9 - 10)
Title: This is my life!
Description: This assignment requires you to write about your own life, your family, and the things that are influencing you so far in your personal journey. The result will be a short autobiography of your own…and hopefully a little more self-knowledge to take with you as you consider your journey in the years to come.

Subject: English Language Arts (9), or Mathematics (9 - 12)
Title: Fibonacci Poetry
Description: Students will review the Fibonacci sequence and compose poems with the number of syllables in each line corresponding to the the numbers of that sequence.This lesson plan was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science University, GEMS-U Project.

Subject: 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), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: Everyman in Everyday Language
Description: To gain understanding of allegory and appreciate the changing nature of language, students will read, discuss, and rewrite the medieval morality play Everyman into common teenage language.

Subject: English Language Arts (9), or Information Literacy (K - 12), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: Get to Know Your Library Media Center
Description: This lesson will provide students with an orientation to the Library Media Center and the Dewey Decimal Classification System. The students will access the Alabama Virtual Library and will participate in a library scavenger hunt as a basic introduction to the library services.

Subject: English Language Arts (9), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: A Gift For Mom and Dad
Description: Following a reading of O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi," students write an expository essay based on the connotative definition of "gift." The essay is then presented as a holiday gift. The lesson can be adapted to a variety of occasions and grade levels.

Subject: 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 (9), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: Letter of Introduction - Writing as a Diagnostic Tool
Description: At the beginning of the school year, students respond to a teacher-generated questionnaire in personal letter format. As a diagnostic tool, letter writing can reveal strengths and weaknesses in composition skills, organization, sentence structure, and mechanics.

Subject: 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.

Subject: English Language Arts (9), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: Alone: Research for Survival
Description: This role-playing lesson enhances students' creativity and develops critical thinking skills. Small groups of students conduct Internet research on the skills necessary to survive when marooned on a Pacific island. Groups present their findings to the class.

Subject: English Language Arts (9), or Science (9 - 12), or Technology Education (9 - 12)
Title: Researching Dolphins as Endangered Mammals
Description: In this interdisciplinary lesson, students work in groups of 3-4 to use the Internet for research. Students create reports and slideshow presentations (optional) defining dolphins as mammals and as an endangered species. Students will also propose ways to prevent extinction.

Thinkfinity Lesson Plans  
Subject: Language Arts
Title: Teaching the Epic through Ghost Stories      Add Bookmark
Description: In this lesson, students connect to the oral tradition of epic storytellers by sharing their own oral tales of ghosts and goblins and monsters.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Ghosts and Fear in Language Arts: Exploring the Ways Writers Scare Readers      Add Bookmark
Description: Students analyze scary stories to 'break the code'' of horror writing and use what they learn to write scary stories of their own.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Exploring the Power of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Words through Diamante Poetry      Add Bookmark
Description: Students explore the ways that powerful and passionate words communicate the concepts of freedom, justice, discrimination, and the American Dream in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s '' I Have a Dream'' speech.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Spend a Day in My Shoes: Exploring the Role of Perspective in Narrative      Add Bookmark
Description: In this lesson, students imagine spending a day in someone else's shoes. After reviewing the characteristics of narrative writing, they then write narratives from that person's point of view.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: On the Road author Jack Kerouac embarked on his first cross-country road trip in 1947.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students read a section from On the Road that deals with cross-country travel and reflects Kerouac's unique writing style. Students then attempt to write a narrative using Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness style.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was integrated in 1957.      Add Bookmark
Description: After viewing some footage from the actual event, students jot down thoughts and feelings of the Little Rock Nine. Students then write a bio-poem that might have been written by one of these students on this historic day.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Arabic Poetry: Guzzle a Ghazal!      Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson, from EDSITEment, contains three activities for students to understand and appreciate the intricate poetry of the ghazal, a pre-Islamic verse form still popular today. These activities involve experimenting with English rhymes in the style of the ghazal, studying real ghazal poetry to deduce its structure and rules, and group composition of ghazal-style poetry in English.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Langston Hughes was born in 1902.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students examine the poem '' Dreams'' and identify metaphors in each sentence. Groups of students then compose poems with metaphors for dreams.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Japanese Poetry: Tanka? You're Welcome!      Add Bookmark
Description: This lesson, from EDSITEment, contains three activities which use the Japanese poetic form of the tanka as a prompt for students to reflect on the nature and purpose of different poetic rules and devices. The activities involve a close study of the conventions and thematic concerns of tanka poems, opportunities for students to compose their own poems, and detailed structural analysis of selected tanka.
Thinkfinity Partner: EDSITEment
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Author Joel Chandler Harris was born in 1848.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students study how regional dialect is written phonetically by reading a segment of Harris' story, as well as two others, and compare them using the Interactive Venn Diagram.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Fairy Tale Autobiographies      Add Bookmark
Description: Students read and analyze fairy tales from several cultures, identifying common elements. Choosing common situations, students write original fairy tales, using picture books as models and a peer review process.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 5,6,7,8,9


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Poet Emily Dickinson was born in 1830.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students discuss Dickinson's poem '' This Is My Letter To The World'' and use it to focus on how audience affects voice.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: A Christmas Carol was the first book transmitted over radio!      Add Bookmark
Description: Students write a script for A Christmas Carol on a level that primary students can read and perform. Older students record the performance and create a website to showcase photographs.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Jacob Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm, was born today.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students compare different versions of the fairy tale Cinderella and then rewrite a lesser-known Grimm story and explain the changes they made.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817.      Add Bookmark
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: Poet Robert Burns was born in 1759.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students read examples of traditional Scottish ballads and use this information to write and perform their own ballads.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Today is World Poetry Day.      Add Bookmark
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: Actor Sidney Poitier was born in 1924.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students do a journal entry about barriers that have been broken?such as age, race, and gender?that might impede them in the future, and how they can break through those barriers.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Renaissance Humanism in Hamlet and The Birth of Venus       Add Bookmark
Description: After reading Shakespeare's Hamlet, students identify, analyze, and explain how elements in Botticelli's painting Birth of Venus and examples from the play illustrate the philosophy of Renaissance Humanism.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Diarist Samuel Pepys was born.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students write diary entries and revisit the entries as if it were a hundred years from now. Students then brainstorm and write paragraphs about life in the 21st century.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Today is Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko's birthday.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students revive elements of the oral tradition by writing about something funny that happened to them recently, sharing with classmates, and discussing the changes that occur during the retelling of the stories.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Author Garc -a M rquez was born on this day.      Add Bookmark
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: Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization      Add Bookmark
Description: Students create their own audio dramatization of a text they have read, after exploring Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Making Connections to Myth and Folktale: The Many Ways to Rainy Mountain       Add Bookmark
Description: Following the model of N. Scott Momaday's The Way To Rainy Mountain, students write three-voice narratives based on Kiowa folktales, an interview with an Elder, and personal connections to theme.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Ezra Jack Keats was born on this day in 1916.      Add Bookmark
Description: In celebration of Keats' birthday, students write stories that include some characters from Keats' books and practice using collage techniques with the Collage Machine.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: K,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: On this date in 1901, Andrew Carnegie gave $5.2 million to New York City libraries.      Add Bookmark
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: Poet Robert Frost was born in 1874.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students celebrate Frost's birthday by exploring his innovation in the sonnet form by studying poems and presenting them to the class.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 9,10,11,12


Subject: Language Arts
Title: Veterans Day is celebrated in the United States today.      Add Bookmark
Description: Students write biographical poems about a soldier.
Thinkfinity Partner: ReadWriteThink
Grade Span: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12