Figuring out Figurative Language
Students will work collaboratively to infer the implied meaning of a metaphor used in a poem. Students will complete a graphic organizer in which they discuss with their peers the two items being compared in the metaphor, write and illustrate the literal meaning of each word being compared, and use this information to infer the implied meaning of the metaphor. The lesson has a strong focus on vocabulary development and is designed with English learners (ELs) in mind.
Lights, Camera, Action!
Students compare and contrast potential and kinetic energy by creating a real-world model through a movie.
Crime Scene Investigations through Text Structures
Students participate in an activity where they must solve a crime. Students visit different stations that include surveillance tape, tips, eyewitness statements, and a crime scene. Each station is formatted as a different organizational pattern allowing students to practice creating summaries reflecting the structure used.
Does it have Potential?
Students will work with partners to investigate how mass, potential energy, and kinetic energy act on objects dropped from varying heights.
Video of the lesson being taught
Composing Like Beethoven
Students will review music vocabulary, name notes using flashcards, and create and present a 4/4 composition using rhythm sticks and other available instruments.
Music flash cards
Critiquing and Creating Compound and Complex Sentences
Students will create compound and complex sentences with proper comma usage and present their explanations to the class.
Student work
Layers to Understanding Poetry
Students will apply their analytical skills to different types of poems by reviewing the devices used in poetry, reading and analyzing two poems, and creating a poster to demonstrate their learning.
Connecting Author’s Purpose and Organizational Patterns
Students explore and analyze how the author can achieve a specific purpose by using a variety of organizational patterns.
Revision is in the Details
Students receive the same pre-generated sentence and discuss with a partner how to revise that sentence, adding details either by writing or drawing.
Organized Authors: Name That Structure
Students will read a text passage, looking for and highlighting key words that indicate the appropriate organizational pattern of the text.
Students working
The Battle Between Editing and Revising
Students will apply revision strategies to mentor texts. They also will have the opportunity to create a new book.
Earth’s Movements
Students will work in small collaborative groups to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth as it revolves around the Sun which creates a day and night cycle.
Discovering the Power of a Complete Sentence
Students will discover the necessary components of a complete sentence and use the complete subject and complete predicate in their own writing through a process called ratiocination.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
The Key to Key Signature
Students will review previous learning about half steps, whole steps, and enharmonics and will begin to learn the construction of tetrachords using the whole and half step sequence.
Painting With Expository Writing
After students examine an image by Faith Ringgold, they will write supporting sentences when given a central idea sentence.
The "Moon" Idea
Students will observe the teacher sorting details that she read from a book about a dog. The teacher is making groups with the details and models her thinking. Students to help determine a title for each group. The students replicate that work in collaborative small groups using details they provided to the teacher after reading a book about the moon the previous day.
Summarizing with Sarah at the ER
The purpose of this lesson is to sequence the events of a story chronologically and be able to summarize the major events.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
Explore Revising and Editing with some Classroom Adventure
While “scooting” from one example to another, students will explore sentences in order to determine what end punctuation is necessary and why. Students will also collaborate to explore sentences in order to identify what edits are necessary and why.
Teachers during Introduction
Mapping Out Our Learning
Students will participate in a workshop-style lesson that includes partner and small-group work, teacher modeling, and independent reflection to not only label and identify text features within informational text, but to also connect the feature to its purpose.
Rolling into Compound Sentences
Students will create compound sentences from simple sentences.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.