Student reading tasks for 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'

Learning Intention:

The objective of this ongoing activity is to encourage students to learn the meaning of difficult vocabulary in order to assist in understanding the text in Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone.

Vocabulary is often referred to as a list of words used in a particular text.  The understanding and use of such words could include actions, concepts, or word meanings in a text.

Methods / Teaching Strategies

·        Group work

·        Personalized Learning

·        Individual Tasks

Assessment of Learning

·         Chapter Chart for Vocabulary (provided)

·         Student Participation of Tasks

Click here to download activities for Chapters 1 through 6

Click here to download activities for Chapter 6 through to end of book.

Teach your students how to write letters emails and letters correctly.

Email has changed the face of communication.  What used to take days or even weeks to reach recipients can now be sent with the click of a button.  Even with these modern technologies in place, students should still be aware of how to impress companies, prospective employers, and others with their ability to compose a letter in correct business letter format.  This on-demand practice prompt provides a valid reason that guides students through including the correct parts to a business letter.   

Click here to download the prompt and lesson plan.

Teach your students to write 'engaging hooks' that lure an audience

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Every writer starts out enthusiastic about their topic.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that their audience is going to instantly relate to what is being stated.

Writers have an obligation to present their topic in an interesting, engaging format that brings even the driest of topics to life.

That process starts with a hook!  Successful writers understand that articles, letters, editorials, and even speeches have a common beginning – a hook! If the reader isn’t lured in, why do they want to continue reading?

Methods / Teaching Strategies

Group work

Class Discussion

Personalized Learning

 

Assessment of Learning

·      Composing hooks (cooperative learning activity)

 

Click here to download the complete free four page lesson plan.  ( No strings attached!)

Hundreds of great teaching ideas and resources to teach your students to write more effectively.

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When you have been collating lesson plans, teaching resources, videos, posters and tech tools to to help improve students writing skills for five years the collection can become quite large.

Today I have collated all of those articles for you to browse and use with your students.  Literally hundred's of great ideas for students of all ages.

As always, everything free to download and please be sure to leave a comment under anything that takes your fancy.

Click here to access all of our writing resources

Click here to access all our writing prompts and inspiration

A dozen ways for teachers to use Google Doc's Collaboratively

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So if you are not using Google Doc's to share your documents and information with other people then you are really not using Google Doc's to it's potential.

Sharing, collaborating and privacy are all concepts that you really need to get your head around if you are going to ensure that information you share with parents, students and other teachers stays confidential when it needs to, and hits the world stage when required.

These 12 simple tips from Google's support section are an excellent starting point to get a grip around collaborating on Google Docs.

Shared folders Create shared folders and drag-and-drop items from other folders.

Privacy: You can choose to have documents published publicly or privately.

Share, don’t email: Instead of emailing docs back and forth, type in email addresses of people you’d like to share your Google document with, and they’ll be sent an editable, web copy. This also ensures you’re always working on the same document.

Make changes at the same time: You and your classmates can log into the same document at the same time to make edits.

Share a folder: Share entire groups of documents saved in a single file with coworkers and students.

Invite mailing lists as collaborators: You can share a document with all members of your email mailing lists with this function.

Make a presentation in real-time: Invite others to view a presentation you’ve made as you see it too.

Data validation: Make sure everyone is entering data into the spreadsheet the same way by controlling data validation settings.

Allow people to edit without signing in: This means anyone, even if they don’t have a Google account, can sign in and edit your piece.

Remove collaborators: If you want to take someone off a project, click None next to the name of the person you want to remove.

Forum: If you get stuck with a docs problem, you can head over to the forums and find help from other users.

Change ownership: Switch ownership of Google docs as project leaders change.

 

Using riddles to develop student's vocabulary skills

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The riddle is a misleading or puzzling question that people pose as a problem to be solved.    In past cultures the riddle was often used as a guessing game from folklore. 

Folklore incorporated riddles to boost creative thinking and logic.  In addition riddles that are well written help with vocabulary development and understanding. Students become more aware of how to solve riddles by reading the clues that are written describing people, animals, places, or objects.

Methods / Teaching Strategies

·        Modeled Practice

·        Questioning

·        Individual Task

Assessment of Learning

·         Riddles Worksheet (provided)

·         Demonstrated an understanding of writing clues to describe people, animals, places, or objects by writing a riddle

 

Click here to download the free five page lesson plan

Great lesson for students about riddles

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Riddles are often called “brainteasers” because they cause a person to have to think outside the box. This means that answers to riddles often have a double or veiled meaning. 

This activity will allow students to develop an understanding of what a riddle is and how to look at solving riddles.  The riddles worksheet and activity provides students with the opportunity to gain some basic knowledge and practice in reading and solving riddles.

Click here to download the free four page lesson plan.

25 things to do before / during / after Reading

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The following collection of reading activities first appeared in the appendix of The English Teacher's Companion by Jim Burke.  They are excellent ideas to engage students with texts.

Jim has 103 of these in total that can be found in his many books about teaching English more effectively.  Check them out below.

  • Pantomime a  scene you choose or the class calls out to you while up there.
  • Dramatic monologue for a character in a scene: what are they thinking/feeling at that moment--why?
  • Dramatic monologue for a character while they are out of the book: where are they? why? thinking?
  • Business Card Book: write the story in the most compelling way you can on paper the size of a business card.
  • Postcard: write to a friend about this book; to the author; to a character in the book; write as if you were the character or author and write to yourself.
  • Mapmaker: draw a map of the book's setting.
  • Moviemaker: write a one page "pitch" to a producer explaining why the story would or would not make a great movie.
  • Trailer: movie previews always offer a quick sequence of the best moments that make us want to watch it; storyboard or narrate the scenes for your trailer. Focus on verbs.
  • Billboard: as in the movies, take what seems the most compelling image(s) and create an ad.
  • Adjective-itis: pick five adjectives for the book or character(s), and explain how they apply.
  • Collage: create an individual or class collage around themes or characters in the book.
  • Haiku/Limerick: create one about a character.
  • Cliffs Notes: have each student take a chapter and, using Cliffs' format, create their own.
  • Roundtable: give students a chance to talk about what intrigues, bothers, confuses them about the book.
  • Silent Roundtable: the only rule is the teacher cannot say anything during the period allotted for class discussion of book.
  • Silent Conversation: a student writes about a story on paper; then passes it to another who responds to what they said; each subsequent respondent "talks" to/about all those before.
  • Fishbowl: impromptu or scheduled, 2-4 students sit in middle of circle and talk about a text; the class makes observations about the conversation then rotate into the circle.
  • Movie Review: students write a review of (or  discuss) a movie based on a story.
  • Dear Author: after reading a book the student(s) write the author via the publisher (who always forwards them).
  • Surf the Net: prior to, while, or after reading a book check out the web and its offerings about the book, its author, or its subject.
  • Inspirations: watch a film inspired by a story (e.g., Franny and Alexander is inspired by Hamlet) and compare/contrast.
  • Timeline: create a timeline that includes both the events in the novel and historical information of the time. Try using Post-Its on a whiteboard or butcher paper!
  • Mandala: create a mandala with many levels to connect different aspects of a book, its historical time, and culture.
  • Transparencies: copy portion of text to transparency; kids annotate with markers and then get up to present interpretation to class.
  • Gender-Bender: rewrite a scene and change the gender of the characters to show how they might act differently (e.g., Lord of Flies); can also have roundtable on gender differences.
  • Picture This: bring in art related to book's time or themes; compare, describe, discuss.
  • Kids Books: bring in children's books about related themes and read these aloud to class.
  • Downgrade: adapt myths or other stories for a younger audience; make into children’s books or dramatic adaptation on video or live.
  • Draw!: translate chapters into storyboards and cartoons; draw the most important scene in the chapter and explain its importance and action.
  • Oprah Bookclub: host a talkshow: students play the host, author, and cast of characters; allow questions from the audience.