literature internet hunt activities created by cindy o'hora the internet is an excellent resource for helping you better understand what you are reading in a book. These hunts explore: settings, characters, author's lives, and other ideas related to the book being studied. how to use: i suggest you create a link from your class/school web page to this index page or the individual hunt activity page. use a digital format to answer . or print the hunt page for an answer sheet.

Make text bigger or mac hold down the command key and press the + key plus sign or windows use ctrl amp + key. Just right! laura preble sometimes it’s difficult to get students interested in literature, especially the classics. Spicing up lesson plans with some creative projects allows students who are not traditionally academically successful to show what they’ve learned in a slightly different way.

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The results can be refreshing and rewarding! here are ways you can spice up your lessons as well have examples of what i have done in my classroom. This is the first year i’ve tried this project, but it was fun and really successful. I printed a simple backdrop from the internet, a drawing that looked like gatsby’s mansion. As extra credit, i challenged students to find examples of 1920s fashion and create themselves in the likeness of a flapper or a bootlegger, somebody who would appear at gatsby’s lavish soirees.

I asked for figures that were cut out, on cardstock or poster board, and six to eight inches tall. lord of the flies have students print out primitive figures and paste their head on with war paint, or have them print out photos of themselves in regular clothes, then distress the clothes and hair, and add face paint. fahrenheit 451 have students pose with a favorite book, print out the photo, and make a gallery of mug shots. romeo and juliet have students create masked figures of themselves attending the capulet party.

Instead of assigning research papers on a piece of literature, you can have students write a two page analysis of how the writer’s life was reflected in his or her work. Have them put an artistic twist on it by creating a mask of their assigned person. This can work with any novel or play in addition to any author, poet, inventor, historical figure, artist, or mathematician you are studying in your class. all you would need to do is adapt the assignment to the person who is being studied.

the symbolic portrait project my senior creative writing students needed to do a research project, so i had them do this alternative research assignment. I printed what looked like a 3 dimensional kabuki mask on white cardstock and gave one to each student. They were to use collage, paint, drawing, or any other method to portray the work, life, and themes of the playwright. When i hung them up, i had a gallery of playwrights that created a stunning exhibit in my room.

I did have to remind my students that i did not want a photographic image of the playwright, but a symbolic image. One assignment/lesson plan that’s really fun and creative is having students mimic the distinctive writing style of an author that is being studied. the diary project i had my students read excerpts from adam’s diary by mark twain. They had to then write a seven day diary for a fictional character using comedy elements we’ve studied in class juxtaposition, wordplay, rule of three, sarcasm, what if. more literature imitation projects the catcher in the rye direct students write graphic novellas in their own voice about their own adventures in much the same way holden caulfield recounts his new york experience. Requiring students to put illustrations on every other page of their novella makes for interesting reading.

Have students write letters or diary entries in the puritan style and manner of abigail williams and john proctor. Students can easily think of ways to modernize poe’s tale of mystery and guilt. Anthem: ayn rand’s short tale of a dystopian future doesn’t use the pronoun i by design. Ask students to write a short piece about themselves without using the pronoun i. When studying poetry, especially classic forms, students aren’t that thrilled with the old school topics think ozymandias. Try using poems that have specific patterns and then ask students to write parodies substituting modern celebrities or issues for humorous effect.

lady gaga poem project i took the edwin arlington robinson poem richard cory and used the iambic pentameter to pen a masterpiece about lady gaga. more modernized poetry projects shakespeare’s sonnets ask them to write love poems to an object rather than a person, in sonnet form. the rime of the ancient mariner by samuel taylor coleridge replace water with some other beverage that’s school appropriate, and change the setting of the ocean to the local mall, and see what happens. When studying a particular historical timeframe or event, try adding a spin on it by creating a more personal connection. vietnam role play writing assignment when i taught the novel fallen angels by walter dean meyer, i wanted my students to know more about the vietnam war. I made a list of possible roles people played during the war, from hippie peace protester to draft dodger to enlisted army private to vietnamese chicken farmer. I gave these people made up names, a brief description of each and their perspective on the war, and then told my students to create a dossier on their character.

They had to use their own faces in the photo, whether it was clipped and pasted or manipulated digitally. With research, they also had to write a letter as this character, a five entry diary of an eventful week as if they were the character, and find three items that might have belonged to the character and include them in the dossier. We then had an exhibit of our characters, and students could learn about the various roles of people during the war by reading the personnel files of each character. other examples have students research the royal families and gentry of scotland and do family trees. Have students research the people's roles of people during colonial times or puritan society.

what do you do to put an extra twist to your assignments and lesson plans. Share in the comments section! what boosts pbl from a fun and engaging exercise to a rigorous and powerful real world learning experience? researchers have identified four key components that are critical to teaching successfully with pbl barron amp darling hammond, 2008 ertmer amp simons, 2005 mergendoller amp thomas, 2005 hung, 2008 . Every student at maine's king middle school is issued a laptop to support the school wide project based learning left.

Credit: michael warren left / gilberto nobrega right in general, pbl projects begin by presenting a driving question, one that focuses on intended learning objectives, aligns with students' skills, and appeals to students' interests. Pbl can range from being highly structured to guide students toward the most efficient, optimal solution to having multiple or even no clear solutions for example, a study of climate change. If you are new to pbl, it's best to start with smaller projects that are already part of the curriculum ertmer amp simons, 2005. Based on an analysis of studies demonstrating successful pbl, hung 2008 proposed a model for designing problems or projects, which focuses on content, context, calibration, researching, reasoning, and reflection, or 3c3r. According to hung 2008 , pbl is ineffective when: a the skills needed for solving a problem are either above or below the learner's abilities, and/or b the problem asks students to study content that is outside of the content objectives, but required for solving the problem. Teachers can avoid both common mistakes by following a seven step procedure that sets up the problem for students adapted from hung, 2008.

define the content.