The Comic Creator invites children and teens to design their own comic strips. Their creations can be just for fun or as part of more structural learning activities: planning writing activities, before- and after-reading activities, and responding to books.
In the essay “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan explains that she “began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with.” How these “different Englishes” or even a language other than English contribute to identity is a crucial issue for adolescents.
In this lesson, students explore this issue by brainstorming the different languages they use in speaking and writing, and when and where these languages are appropriate. They write in their journals about a time when someone made an assumption about them based on their use of language, and share their writing with the class. Students then read and discuss Amy Tan's essay “Mother Tongue.” Finally, they write a literacy narrative describing two different languages they use and when and where they use these languages.
Students are more likely to understand, recall, and care about what an idiom means after having played with the phrase through a highly engaging exploration of metaphorical language. Eye on Idioms can be used to engage students in a study of seven idioms. After viewing the literal representation of each idiom, students are asked to complete the sentence by selecting the correct idiom from the list. Using context clues from the sentence, students can then determine the metaphorical meaning of the idiom. As a final step, students are asked to use the idiom in a sentence to show their understanding of its meaning. Students should be reminded to print the page after completing each idiom exercise since their work cannot be saved electronically.
Using an interactive mapping template, students are guided to design an argument for a persuasive essay or debate. After the Persuasion Map is created, it may be printed, emailed or saved.
Students write biographical poems about a soldier. On November 11, the United States honors those soldiers who have fought for their country in military service. Across America, ceremonies are held to commemorate the efforts of the armed forces past and present.
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