From “Summarize” to “Synthesize” Even what seems like a low-level "summarize" task can become beautifully high-level when we climb Bloom's Taxonomy.
The Westing Game – Book Study Ideas Sixteen unlikely heirs? A mysterious murder? A fortune on the line? Let's dig into The Westing Game!
Tweaks To A Character Study A teacher sent me a sequence of questions about the story My Father’s Dragon. Based on what you’ve read so far, what is one word you could use to describe Elmer? What from the story made you choose this word? Think of other books you’ve read. What character from another story you know is similar […]
Picture Books and Stories for Introducing Depth and Complexity Three picture books that I've used (or would use) to introduce Depth and Complexity to students of any age.
Classic Halloween Stories With Halloween approaching, it's a great time to expose students to some spooky classics. Lucky for us, many of these stories are in the public domain and freely available in many formats.
Content Imperatives And Conflict Conflict is an essential tool for analyzing literature, understanding history, and improving as a writer. Each year, my 6th graders discuss the types of conflict commonly found in stories and analyze writing using the content imperatives.
Is Your Writing Process This Fun? Teaching our students to prewrite, write, and rewrite is a difficult process. Much like getting students to show their work in math, process writing is a challenge for gifted students who work intuitively and are annoyed by artificial processes. What better motivation is there than the chance to point out someone else's errors AND be rewarded for it?
Patterns In Writing: Conflict Discussing types of conflict is a great first step towards building a strong narrative. Although the term conjures up images of ninja battles for many of our students, conflict can take on many more sophisticated forms than physical fights.
