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What if Dr. Seuss Covered a Poem?

For Teachers

Rather than just “paraphrasing” a poem, what if we did a cover version?

St. Patrick and Other Legends

How would real people feel about the legends that have been created about them?

Words Within Words: PATRICK

How many words can you find within Patrick?

What’s In My Brain: Austin vs Los Angeles

We’re looking at capital cities.

Bobbing for Apples

What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?

Thanksgiving Photo Writing

Starting with an old-timey photo, students will write from a particular item’s point of view.

Fancier Figurative Language: Move the Simile

What if we started a sentence with the simile?

Analyzing Conflict with the Content Imperatives

How to go deep into conflict using the Content Imperatives.

Self Portraits: Text Art

What if a students’ self-portrait was made of words that describe the student!?

Self Portraits Part One: Line Drawings

Anyone, yes anyone, can create a (somewhat) realistic self-portrait using these steps. Anyone!

Not Like The Others: Natural Disasters

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

Writing Sample: White Fang (The Wild)

A passage from White Fang to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Writing A Thanksgiving Letter

What if an inanimate object could express thanks for a special person in your life? What would it write?

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!

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.

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

Can students spot similes vs metaphors?

Run On or Not? – What’s In My Brain

Can your students spot the run-on sentences?

The Resiliency Tournament

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

Universal Themes

For Teachers

Universal Themes are an easy way to connect lessons, units, and content areas, even going across grade levels, and into students’ personal interests.

Improving Presentations 1: Watching The Greats

Get better at giving presentations by studying the greats!

Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea

Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.

Educational Valentines

Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!

Fancier Figurative Language: Start with a Cliche

We’ll start with the cliché “as cold as ice” and go somewhere much more interesting.

New Uses for Everyday Things

For Teachers

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

Response to Lit: An Inductive Approach

For Teachers

Here’s how one teacher uses inductive thinking to help students respond to literature.

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.