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Analyzing Conflict with the Content Imperatives

How to go deep into conflict using the Content Imperatives.

Analyze Characters Using Philosophy

What is the Brick Pig’s philosophy? How would he apply it to the characters in Harry Potter?

Analyze Paragraphs: Baseball

Three paragraphs about baseball. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.

Analyze Paragraphs: Cucumbers

Three paragraphs about cucumbers. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.

Analyze Paragraphs: Empire State Building

Three paragraphs about the Empire State Building. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.

Analyze Paragraphs: Tomatoes

Three paragraphs about tomatoes. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.

Analyze Paragraphs: Wolverines

Three paragraphs about wolverines. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.

Word Ladder: Two to Six (6-steps)

COLD to COOL. BAND to SING. Change one letter at a time — can you find the path?

Word Ladder: Fast to Race (4 step)

COLD to COOL. BAND to SING. Change one letter at a time — can you find the path?

Not Like The Others: Natural Disasters

Four natural disasters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

Measurement: An Elephant

What if I told you that an elephant weighed a back-breaking 176,000? Could you figure out the unit I’m using? But… how many corgis would that be?

Fixing Shakespearean Run-Ons

Can your students help The Bard? We’ll fix five Shakespearean run-ons in three different ways.

Not Like The Others: States of Matter

How is each of the states of matter not like the others?

Word Ladders Introduction

You won’t believe how this spelling and vocabulary puzzle will get kids’ brains sweating over the smallest of words.

Not Like The Others: Countries

How is each of these four countries not like the others?

Math Curiosity: A Pattern Packed Triangle

Pascal’s pattern-packed triangle is a potent puzzle for pupils to ponder.

Holiday vs Holiday (from a Mascot’s Perspective)

Want something to do during the holiday season that is both fun and involves thinking? Get students writing about what a snowman would think about Halloween or what a ghost would think about Thanksgiving.

Characters Dressed as Other Characters for Halloween

What if one character dressed up as another for Halloween? Would the Cat in the Hat pick Captain Jack Sparrow, because they’re both chaotic yet good-natured people? Would Elsa dress up as The Ice King since they are both lonely?

Virtue or Vice?

Aristotle noted that positive traits and negative traits are often the same thing, but just in different amounts. The right amount is a virtue, but too much or too little and it’s a vice.

SCAMPER: Scaffolding Creativity

Asking students to “think creatively” won’t get you far. They won’t know how to start, they’ll get stuck with simple ideas, or they’ll just go completely wild. SCAMPER is a tool for scaffolding the process of creativity.

Writing Seuss Style Poetry

Sure, Dr. Seuss wrote for young students, but can older students analyze his writing and learn to mimic his style? THEN, they can produce Seuss-style poetry about any topic: Ancient China, the electromagnetic spectrum, Pride and Prejudice, and (yes) fraction division!

Not Like The Others: Charlotte’s Web

Four Charlotte’s Web characters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

Not Like The Others: Creatures of the Tundra

Four tundra creatures. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

Not Like The Others: US Presidents

Four US presidents. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

Fancier Figurative Language: Advanced Repetition

Is your students’ use of repetition limited to, “The girl was very, very, very fast.”? Let’s borrow some ideas from Shakespeare!

Advanced Alliteration and Consonance

When students learn about alliteration, it’s hard to steer them away from goofy tongue-twisters. Certainly, there must be more powerful and practical ways of using alliteration. In this lesson, I draw on delicious examples from Shakespeare to show how a very advanced writer used alliteration. Then, I break those ideas down so students can try them out.

Do Narrators Have Too Much Power?

Imagine being a character in a story. Are you worried that your story’s narrator may inaccurately describe you? What if they reveal something you wanted to be kept secret? Do narrators have too much power!?

What’s In My Brain: Cute Baby vs Fast Cheetah

Can students spot similes vs metaphors?

The Personalities of Rocks

What would an igneous rock be like? Would it get along with a sedimentary rock? Could they handle the hot personality of a metamorphic rock?

Investigating Christmas Trees

Start with facts about Christmas trees. Group them. Label them. Can you boil it all down to one big idea?

Parts of Speech Party – Thanks

How many different ways can we use the word “thanks”? Let’s find out in this Parts of Speech Party!

Parts of Speech Party – Limit

How many different ways can we use the word “limit”? Let’s find out in this Parts of Speech Party!

Student Introductions with Complexity and Frames

How have you changed over time? Students introduce themselves through the lens of change — and learn a Depth and Complexity tool in the process.

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!

The Resiliency Tournament

Your students will set up a tournament to determine which person or character best demonstrated resiliency.

Building Creative Analogies

We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.

Describing Author’s Voice

What if… Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?

Synonym Graphs

So, which is happiest: happy, joyful, or ecstatic? Which is most temporary?

The Thinking Hats

So… do your students moan when forced to work in a group? Part of the problem is that lack the structure to work well with peers. Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats are a perfect tool to help with this problem.

Multiple Meaning Matcher – Introduction

Your students will try to match up definitions that belong to the same homophone in this brain-boggling vocab puzzle.

Persuasion and Packaging: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

How does a drink’s packaging affect us emotionally and logically?

Percents and Credit Cards

Let’s buy something expensive with a credit card and then make only the minumum payments!

Creating A Realistic Flower and Pollinator

Your students will create a new flower, designed to attract a specific pollinator.

“Its Big Day” – A Children’s Story About Its and It’s

Let’s spice up a typically dull lesson about the difference between “its” and “it’s” by asking students to write a children’s story about the adventures of a critter named It.

Introduce Symbolism with Pixel Art

Create a pixelated icon that represents the essence of a character!

Characters’ Talents and Multiple Intelligences

How do characters from novels line up with Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences?

Literary Technique: Juxtaposition

Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!

Reduce Anxiety: 5 Question Rule

For Teachers

Adults can limit anxiety by implementing the Five Question Rule.

Reduce Anxiety: Worry Time

For Teachers

Adults can learn to help students reduce anxiety with the tool Worry Time.

An App For A Historical Figure

What kind of an app could have helped Abe Lincoln accomplish his goals?

Reduce Anxiety: Brain Plate (Tool 3)

When a student’s brain is full of worries, everything feels urgent. Brain Plate helps them sort what’s real from what’s noise — and actually do something about it.

Reduce Anxiety: Change The Channel (Tool 2)

Reduce anxiety by learning to “change the channel.”

Reduce Anxiety: Square Breathing (Tool 1)

Reduce anxiety by breathing in a square pattern.

Students and Personality Types

For Teachers

How can our students be so different? And how can we help them to understand themselves and each other better.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Nothing could possibly go wrong with a love potion on the loose!

New Uses for Everyday Things

For Teachers

Here’s how Joelle Trayers gets even her youngest students ready to think in unexpected ways.

Greek and Latin Dinosaur Names

Let’s create a new dinosaur using Greek and Latin stems!

Better Stories Part 4: Character Archetypes

Are students’ characters a bit flat? Archetypes give them a strong foundation on which to build their own characters as well as a tool to analyze existing stories.