Playlist: Bookmarks
Introducing Universal Theme of Change
Everything changes. But how does it change? Students brainstorm dozens of examples and boil them down to one big idea.
Tournament: 8 Wonders of the Solar System
Which location is the most wondrous place in the solar system?
Writing in Pilish
Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?
Paragraphs: Systems of Sentences
Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.
Writing Sample: Peter Pan
A passage from “Peter Pan” to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.
Sets of Idioms
Why do we say ‘break a leg’? Five themed sets of idioms your students will actually remember.
Student Introductions With Depth and Frames
Want to introduce the tools of Depth and Complexity and learn more about your students and introduce the Frame graphic organizer? Have I got the activity for you!
Math Curiosity: Four Squares
Every positive integer can be written as the sum of (at most) four perfect squares!
Describing Author’s Voice
What if… Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?
Jabberwocky and Context Clues
Context clues lessons can be a disaster. Here, we expose students to a delightful classic packed with nonsense words (“Jabberwocky”) and ask them to decipher the meanings and parts of speech. Then, it’s only natural for students to write their own nonsense poems.
Multiple Meaning Matcher – Introduction
Your students will try to match up definitions that belong to the same homophone in this brain-boggling vocab puzzle.
Greekymon
Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.
Better Stories Part 1: The Big Idea
We open our unit on narrative writing with a big idea: “structure increases creativity.” I show how this is true by bringing in examples from across all disciplines.