The Favorites List

This series of close-reading focus lessons is designed to accompany the full-length novel version of Flowers for Algernon. The lessons guide students through the re-reading of passages related to key themes or areas of focus in the novel, annotating or note-taking as they read. Each series of focus passages is followed with an activity designed to help students further explore and analyze the concept highlighted in the readings. Whether you choose to teach one or more of the lessons to the class

This set of task cards reviews verb moods in various ways by asking students to complete various short, thoughtful tasks. They are designed to be completed in a short amount of time and are perfect for warm-ups/bellringers, exit slips, or quiz review. Students will learn and practice identifying verb moods, as well as writing sentences in different verb moods.

This is a slideshow focusing on the theme and various levels of allegory presented in the short novel. It contains use of OST graphic organizers (Thinking Maps) such as bridge and flow maps. It is a great introduction to the novel and the concept of allegory.

This is a brief introduction to the various moods of verbs: conditional, interrogative, subjunctive, imperative, and indicative.

A focused reading unit of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. The lessons ask students to read the diary entries in focused groups of entries based on a common theme/idea.

This is a Power Point slide show that explains parallelism (parallel structure) and provides practice through interactive slides. A great way to start a lesson on parallelism!

Essay writing can be a daunting experience for our middle and high school students. This series of Power Point lessons provides them with clear and specific guidelines for creating convincing and well-organized persuasive essays. The series, which was co-developed by team teachers Rae Galeazzi and Amy Riebli, includes "Paragraph to Essays," "Let Me Introduce You to My Claim - Writing Introductions," "Developing Your Argument" (which focuses on paragraphs but is applicable to essays), "Elaboratio

This assignment asks students to identify the elements of fiction in the story "Future Tense" by Robert Lipsyte. Students don't simply identify them, but they have to find evidence from the text to support their answers.

A lesson exploring subject-verb agreement more closely. Students will learn how to identify types of subject-verb agreement errors and how to fix them. The lesson is brief, but thorough.

This fun, mouth-watering slideshow presents tips for turning boring simple sentences into amazing, detailed, compound-complex sentences. It includes a note-taking worksheet for students as well as a practice activity at the end incorporating some active student engagement. Enjoy!

This unit provides 15 slides worth of interesting activities to analyze theme, characterization, symbolism, figurative language, and so much more.

The perfect end of the year task asks students to reflect on what they have learned in your class (and in all of their classes). What I have developed is an assignment that helps students reflect on what they have learned and why they were successful. And, it helps incoming students by introducing the big ideas they will encounter in each of their classes. I save the best to give out to my next crop of students.

A mini-lesson on the difference between active voice and passive voice. It explains when it is appropriate and when it isn't, and how to correct passive voice. The lesson provides engaging examples.

An engaging presentation explaining how to use quotation marks correctly when punctuating direct quotes and dialogue. It includes examples and practice activities.

This is a slideshow presentation reviewing prepositions, prepositional phrases, and their uses. It is interactive and keeps students engaged.

This is a quick powerpoint lesson on essay introductions. It includes a break down of a traditional essay introduction. It introduces the hook, the lead in, and the thesis statement. Then, there is a short activity at the end to assess learning.

This powerpoint lesson is intended to be a review of (almost) everything having to do with sentences. It can be used for taking notes, or just as an interactive review or refresher. The slide show provides interesting examples and interactive challenges for students to keep the class engaged.

This is an interactive slideshow introduction to helping verbs and verb phrases. I have included several opportunities to use row/table partners to practice and explore helping verbs.

Students will learn about dependent and independent clauses and how to build sentences using them.

This slideshow reviews the rules for commas with special emphasis on commas used with dialogue, introductory clauses, multiple adjective modifiers, and in a series of words or phrases. There are interactive components so that students don't get bogged down in note-taking, but actually work with the rules.