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Book
Writing Our Communities: Local Learning and Public Culture
by Dave Winter and Sarah Robbins (editors)
Grades | K – 12 |
Type | Book |
Pages | 110 |
Published | January 2005 |
Publisher | ![]() |
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Description |
Student engagement with community becomes the centerpiece of the book, an engagement that takes place across disciplines through projects involving history, environment, culture, and much more. Emphasizing writing and student inquiry, this rich collection offers teachers ready-to-use classroom resources with a sound basis in best practice.
Winter, Dave, and Sarah Robbins. 2005. Writing Our Communities: Local Learning and Public Culture. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Unit
Connecting Past and Present: A Local Research Project
In this unit, students become active archivists, gathering photos, artifacts, and stories for a museum exhibit that highlights one decade in their school's history.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Looking at Landmarks: Using a Picture Book to Guide Research
This lesson uses Ben's Dream by Chris Van Allsburg to highlight ten major landmarks of the world. Students research the landmarks and present their findings to the class.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
More than One Way to Create Vivid Verbs
This lesson teaches students how to use old verbs in a new way, thus creating new and fresh descriptive phrases.
Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Walt Whitman as a Model Poet: "I Hear My School Singing"
Students first analyze Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing," then use Whitman's poem as a model as they create their own list poems.
Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Weaving the Old into the New: Pairing The Odyssey with Contemporary Works
After exploring The Odyssey and a contemporary epic, students choose paired characters from the texts, complete a graphic organizer, and place their characters in hypothetical contemporary situations.
Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Thinking Inductively: A Close Reading of Seamus Heaney's "Blackberry Picking"
This lesson eases students' fear of interpreting complex poetry by teaching them a strategy with which they determine patterns of imagery, diction, and figurative language in order to unlock meaning.
Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Developing Characterization in Raymond Carver's "A Small, Good Thing"
Students read Raymond Carver's story "A Small, Good Thing," focusing on characterization in order to develop one of the static charactersthe hit-and-run driver who causes Scotty's deathmore fully.