Last-day and summer activities from NCTE

NCTE's Inbox e-newsletter (May 12, 2009) offers some great ideas for end-of-the-year and summer activities for students:

Last-Day and Summer Activities
School is winding down across the United States. As students and teachers prepare for some well-deserved time out of the classroom, these activities provide useful options for last-day discussions and projects.

The Voices from the Middle article "Application & Transfer: Powerful Ideas for Ending the School Year" (G) offers a few ideas to explore students' interests, support summer retention of learning, and enhance 21st century literacy skills. The ideas can be easily adapted to any teaching level.

Encourage students to reflect on their school year using the ReadWriteThink.org lesson Writing and Assessing an Autobiographical Incident. Though the lesson recommends the activity as a beginning of school event, its value as a reflective writing assignment is just as clear.

The Language Arts article "Summer Reading: A Reflection" (E) recounts the author's family's summer reading and how she used it as an opportunity to talk with her children about books and, ultimately, about life. On the last day of school, why not invite students to discuss what they plan to read during the summer months?

Looking for books to recommend for summer reading? The ReadWriteThink.org podcast series Chatting about Books (E) and Text Messages (M-S) suggest engaging, quality titles in children's and young adult literature.

"Sharing Ideas for the Tools of Our Trade" (M) from Voices from the Middle includes ideas from several teachers who offer "their best ideas for teaching vocabulary . . . ideas that work even on the last day of school."

Use the ReadWriteThink.org lesson Graphic Life Map (M) to help students reflect on their school year by brainstorming important memories, choosing graphics to represent these memories and constructing a "life map" for the past several months.

Looking for a way to send students off with pride in their work? Check out the fortune cookie idea explained in the College English article "Editor's Choice: The Cookies of Fortune" (G). This activity can be used at any grade level.

Use the last days of class to ask students to ponder their future with the ReadWriteThink.org lesson A Poem of Possibilities: Thinking about the Future. Inspired by John Updike's poem "Ex-Basketball Player," students write poems or prose poems intended for a real audience -- themselves, five years in the future.

How can you apply your summer interactions with readers and writers when you return to the classroom? The English Journal article "What Is Right with This Picture?" (S) describes how one teacher plans to apply lessons learned from a one-week voluntary summer course to his classroom in the fall.

Teachers need to think about their own summer activities as well. In the English Journal article "What Do You Do during Summer Vacation to Help You Reenter the Classroom Refreshed in the Fall?" (G), five teachers share their own stories of rest, reading, exploring, and reinvigorating.

For out-of-school activities for families and community literacy groups, check out the Summer Activities section of ReadWriteThink.org!