Playlist: ELA
Bobbing for Apples
What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?
Think Like An Author: Hemingway vs Dickens
What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?
Lipogram: Rewrite “Twinkle, Twinkle”
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
Writing in Pilish
Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?
Analyze Characters Using Philosophy
What is the Brick Pig’s philosophy? How would he apply it to the characters in Harry Potter?
Writing Sample: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Falling)
A passage from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.
Think Like A Philosopher
What would Socrates have thought if he watched Frozen?
Ambiguous Sentences
Rather than just demand that students “write clearly,” we’ll explore the hazards of poorly written sentences… and maybe create one of our own!
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.
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.
Propaganda and Logical Fallacies
Let’s see how propaganda techniques can make even something great seem bad.
Teach Non-Fiction Writing Structure With Fractals
Did you ever notice that the structure of an essay is very similar to the structure of a paragraph? Hmm…