Add Spring to Students' Learning with this Quartet of Activities

My goodness I have been away for awhile!  Maybe Punxutawney Phil saw his shadow, but my Writing Muse didn't. She has been hibernating sense the beginning of February.

While she snoozed, I spent the time revising product covers which led to updating some of my activities. Why the cover makeovers? A former teaching colleague and still a good friend started a store on TpT, and I love, love, love his frames and graphics.  DO check out Keith Naquin's store https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Keith-Naquin.  Here is a collage of a few of his awesome products.

Now that Spring has Sprung and the enticements of sunshine and warm breezes are creating havoc with students' attention spans, some fresh activities will bring pull them back to the classroom and the love for learning you all create.

Here are a quartet of ideas to wash away winter's cobwebs, dust  and musty atmosphere from  their brains. 

Geoffrey Chaucer knew that people liked to make pilgrimages in April.  Students will enjoy a trip to Chaucer's Middle Ages, too where they will meet some fascinating people. This 51-page unit plan for The Canterbury Tales includes all of the material from my various products for Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterfully satirical piece depicting the people and society of the Middle Ages, plus added activities, projects and material offering teachers and students multiple ways to study this text. A five-page satire section offers information on satire, as well as vocabulary that is prevalent in satiric works, both written and visual. A fun closure activity invites the class to view The Knight’s Tale movie and then, to compare and contrast it to Chaucer’s work.Check out the Product description and Preview on https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Literature-The-Canterbury-Tales-PowerPoint-and-Unit-Plan-81293 ($)

April is National Poetry Month.  It is the perfect month for teachers and students to take an excursion on the Lesson-Up Express. This posting offers two tickets:

Option 1. A Literary Connections Tour:
This ticket offers students the chance to find poems, poets and lyrics that fit the themes of any novel or narrative non-fiction book that they are studying. To complete this trip, students will work individually or in teacher-chosen groups to analyze a poem.

Option 2. A Poetry Camp Trip
If students choose this ticket, they will create five original poems from the types written on the cover of this offering and/or types they choose with the teacher’s approval. After they have composed the poems, they will put them in a literary magazine that they created, and will illustrate each one with original or found images.
3.(Required) Poetry Performance Buffet:
All students will present either the results of their Literary Connections Tour or two poems from their Poetry Camp Trip at the Poetry Performance Buffet at the end of the month. See the download for complete details on how to manage this aspect of the project.

Find more information in the Product Description and see the ticket for the Poetry Performance Buffet in the Preview on https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Poetry-Activity-April-Excursions-Poetry-in-Motion-639372 ($). April will be the coolest, not the cruelest month with this packet.

With this activity, "Write Right! Time for Spring Cleaning," students will spring clean their writing homes. This posting focuses on three aspects of writing:

1. Writing Hang-Ups
2. Making Sense out of Scents, and

3. Musty Memories 

Although each seems like a separate entity from the others, it is not. Students need to expel the roadblocks that stymie their chances for writing success before they can mine their hearts and minds for ideas where they can incorporate sensory imagery. 

You will find more details on https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Writing-Write-Right-Time-for-Spring-Cleaning-656412 ($)

And finally, who couldn't use a road trip- even if it is a mental one?  Send your students on one with, "Character Analysis Activity - Road Trip Time".  This language arts lesson for Middle and High School students, allows students to live vicariously through the character that they select. These characters may be from:

1. The teacher's pre-made list using stories they have studied in class
2. The student's choice from stories they have studied in class, or
3. Students' choices from their independent reading.

The teacher chooses when this activity will enhance lesson content and will develop reading comprehension as well as writing and higher level thinking skills. Students are to complete all three of the Teacher Required Components - 
1. Travel Agent Survey - See handout
2. Road Trip Itinerary- See handout
3. Character’s Road Trip Journal- See requirements
as well as one Student Component Choice- See explanations
1. Facebook Road Trip Fan Page
2. Road Trip Tweets
3. Road Trip Scrapbook
4. Road Trip Slide Show
5. Student’s Idea
Note: helpful links for free templates, etc. are given for both the Character's Road Trip Journal and for the Student Component Choices. Check it out on https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Character-Analysis-Activity-Road-Trip-Time-1256981
I bet on spring Friday's or rainy Mondays you could use an, "AHHH, I needed that moment," while students take a road trip with a literary character. This quartet will entice students to learn and keep them on task, giving you a fresh spring in your step.

Enjoy a Teach It Now Day Every Day,

It's time for 'The Academic Awards for Literature'!

This morning, I was reading The Washington Post's  Book section and saw that The Martian by Andy Weir, The Revenant by Michael Punke and Brooklyn by Colm Toibin all made the top paperback book sales for last week. Why did these titles ring an, "Aha!" bell in my not-quite-caffeinated-enough brain? Because  just this past week, I read their titles on the Academy Award nominations list for Best Motion Picture of 2015.

Other books turned into movies that made the nominations list in that same category as well as others -some in multiple categories- are The Big Short by Michael Lewis, Room by Emma Donahue, Carol - based on The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff, Trumbo by Bruce Cook, 45 Years - based on In Another Country by David Constantine, and Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.

Although many of these books will never be read in the secondary classrooms, some might. The point is- without the original books, these movies never would have been made. This thought made me wonder, "What about literary awards since so many films begin with an already published fiction or non-fiction piece?" 

Students would select their choices for The Academic Awards for Literature  from books they either studied as a class or read independently. It doesn't matter if the book they choose has never been made into a film. They have read enough novels and narrative nonfiction and viewed enough movies to form opinions as to which ones earn the label of the Best.

Would they vote for Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins? The Stranger  by Albert Camus? One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey? The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald, or one of many other solid choices? 

For this activity, teachers build on the Academy Awards nominations chatter to hook Middle and High School students' interest as they write about their reading. The Academic Awards for Literature absorbs students’ interest and motivates them to combine their opinions with facts and details from books as they create their awards and defend their choices.

                                          
The categories for the awards are based on the elements of literature - Characters, Settings, Plot/Conflicts, Symbols, themes and Point of View.

To complete this lesson, students are required to

1. write the category title and their choice for the Best in that category in the given spaces on the certificate.

2. explain and support each choice in a paragraph on the awards certificate, following the points under Writing Criteria. 
3. make sure that their writing specifically addresses the criteria for each category. 
4. defend one or more of their selections during a class discussion.

 

The criteria for Fiction and Non-fiction offers students points to ponder about each element of literature as they consider how to explain the who, what, where, when and why behind their choices.

Example: Characters (Types of characters are in the parentheses): Does the character grow and change (dynamic), show different sides to his/her personality (round), stay one-dimensional in his/her personality (flat) or show no mental/emotional and/or spiritual growth (static)? Is the character: major, minor, the protagonist or the antagonist? Are the characters believable and or sympathetic? Do you care what happens to them?

After they choose their recipients for each award students are to fill in the certificates. Here are six of the twenty categories
•Best Fictional Female Character
•Best Fictional Male Character
•Best Supporting Fictional Female Character
•Best Supporting Fictional Male Character
•Best Non- Fictional Female Character
•Best Non-Fictional Male Character
In their explanatory paragraphs, students must state the award recipient as well as the title and author of the text. To defend their choices, the explanations must include three examples along with supporting details that justify each choice and that add clarity to the reasoning behind it.

The Teacher Notes page lists the Common Core Standards that pertain to this activity as well as the Bloom's Taxonomy terms students will utilize. 

                                           

Download this timely activity from https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reading-Analysis-Activity-Presenting-the-Academic-Awards-for-Literature-523512 ($2.50)

For another engaging activity for books that have been turned into movies, try - https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Literature-Analysis-Activity-Comparing-Books-and-Movies-32844 ($1.25)

These lessons mesh reading, writing and viewing into activities that are guaranteed to ignite lively discussions where students support their opinions with facts and details. Who knows- someday one of their book choices might be turned into a movie, and they will hear their choice  introduced during the 20_ _ Academy Awards  with the words, "And the winner is...".

Enjoy a Teach It Now Day Every Day.