This article addresses what was learned through the National Computational Science Leadership Program about involving teachers in planning high quality units of instruction around computational science investigations. Two cohorts of roughly 25 teacher teams nationwide were given opportunities to develop "replacement units." The goal was to support…

This book is concerned with reinventing the learning process from a multiple intelligences perspective and urges explicitly teaching students about multiple intelligences to further their metacognitive understanding. The multiple-intelligence-based curriculum is intended to interface with the regular academic curriculum. An introductory chapter…

This booklet is the result of the 2001 summer institute for teachers held at the Albertson College of Idaho (Caldwell). The booklet states that the 6-day institute, attended by 21 Idaho teachers, explored how the history and traditions of different cultures can be found in each person's community. Using Idaho's Latino community as a model,…

Literature Circles are a great way to supplement a reading program in a literature-based classroom. In this lesson plan, students create and answer comprehension questions, discover new vocabulary, and examine elements of literature. The students feel ownership in Literature Circles, because they are responsible for the meeting. Any genre of…

Reciprocal teaching is a scaffolded technique based on teacher modeling, student participation, and four strategies that good readers use to comprehend text: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing. Although reciprocal teaching originally was designed for use with struggling readers, this book offers innovative lessons aimed at…

With the help of the teacher, students will read fairy tales and identify common elements. Choosing common situations and working in small groups, students will draw storyboards of their fairy tale and then write the fairy tale. Project will conclude with class presentations. During ten 50-minute lessons, grade 3-5 students will: listen and read…

This lesson introduces Family Message Journals, a tool for encouraging family involvement and supporting writing to reflect and learn. First and second graders are led into composing through demonstration, guided writing, and finally independent writing of messages that they will bring home for family to read and write a reply. During the three…

This report describes a program for increasing the targeted student's ability to demonstrate appropriate use of social skills in a cooperative base group setting. The targeted population consisted of elementary students in an urban middle class Midwestern community. The problem of lack of appropriate social skills was documented through teacher…

Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby," this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that adapting part of a novel into a dramatic reading makes students more intimate with the author's intentions and craft; and that a part of a novel may lend itself to various oral interpretations. The main activity…

Based on characters in the Arthurian legend, this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that many writers have told the tale of King Arthur and the people around him, including Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin, and Mordred. The main activity of the lesson involves students writing a dramatic monologue supposedly composed…

Based on Arthur Miller' play "The Crucible," this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that in 17th-century New England, people were persecuted for allegedly practicing witchcraft; students of this period have looked into the allegations and offer alternatives to witchcraft to explain the people's behavior; and…

In today's culture, students are bombarded with movies based upon literature. Instead of assuming that students will watch the movie rather than reading the book, this lesson plan takes advantage of this phenomena by asking students to compare and contrast books with their movie counterparts and write for variety of authentic purposes. During five…

Primary students solve "oversized" story problems using drawings, equations, and written responses, helping them understand the links between the language of story problems and the numerical representations of matching equations. The activity also includes oral language and reflective writing, thus bringing together a variety of language…

In this unit, students learn what a symbol is, and how this particular symbol--the American flag--is an important part of people's everyday lives. Learning the history of the flag will help instill in students respect for this national symbol and help them learn appropriate etiquette regarding the flag. Students will learn that other symbols of…

From reading texts to annotating web pages, grade 6-8 students rely on group cooperation and individual reading and writing skills in this research project that spans six 50-minute lessons. Student objectives for this project are that they will: read, discuss, and keep a journal on a book in literature circles; understand the elements of and…