Engaging narratives blend the forms of expository writing with the tropes of creative writing. Introduce class members to narrative writing techniques with a 28-lesson unit that not only uses The Autobiography of Malcolm X as a model of...

The 17 lessons in Module 4B, Unit 2 continue to focus on sustainable water management. Seventh graders research ways industry and agriculture currently use freshwater resources to ways sustainable water management could be improved. They...

Introduce sixth graders to mythology, its purposes, and its elements. The study begins with 13 lessons in Module 1, Unit 1 collection. Pupils practice their close reading skills with Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief as well as with...

Module 4a, Unit 3 is all about research. Over the course of the10 lessons  in the collection, seventh graders plan a research-based position paper. After examining a model, writers consider the claims and counterclaims to include in...

 In the 19 lessons that make up the Module 4A, Unit 2 collection, seventh graders continue their research into the affects of screen time on the adolescent brain. They conduct independent research, analyze the credibility of sources,...

An awareness of historical context and author’s purpose are key to understanding informational text. The 15 lessons in the Module 3, Unit 1 collection provide seventh graders with background information about slavery and the debate over...

The 19 lessons that make up the second unit in the 2B Module collection continue the study of identity. George Bernard Shaw's play, Pygmalion, serves as the anchor text and readers track the development of Eliza's character. The unit...

The final unit in the 2b Module has seventh graders  researching how media and advertising perpetuate gender stereotypes. To begin, class members examine the role of gender in Pygmalion, look at advertising in the 1890s, and read the...

The 20 lessons that make up the Module 2a Unit 1 collection focus on building background knowledge of working conditions in American factories during the industrial era. Using their knowledge of these conditions, Class members read...

The final unit in the 3B Module asks eight graders to plan a film, with a sound track, about The Little Rock Nine using Carlotta Walls La Nier's memoir A Mighty Long Way, as a jumping off point. The eight lessons in the collection...

Module 4 is all about food, where it comes from, and what happens to it before it gets to the consumer. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is the anchor text of a collection made up of 15 lessons. In Unit 1, scholars evaluate an...

The 20 lessons in the second unit of Module 3b make up a collection that provides eighth-graders with background knowledge of the Little Rock Nine by using the case study, A Mighty Long Way, and the photo essay, Little Rock Girl...

The second unit in a three-unit module introduces readers to the skills they need to determine the theme of a novel. Through close reading, discussion of related informational text, and evidence collection, students analyze how Linda Sue...

To prepare for a study of George Bernard Shaws' play, Pygmalion, students examine informational texts that explore the concept of personal identity. Pupils perform a close reading focusing on text-dependent questions, make inferences,...

Six resources make up an English language arts module that focuses on writing a position paper on food chains. Scholars compose an essay that states a claim, provides evidence, shares their reasoning, then offers a counterclaim and a...

Two texts anchor a 14-lesson unit that explores what it means to be a woman in America. In her "An Address by Elizabeth Cady Stanton" Stanton argues for women's right to vote. Audre Lorde offers a different point of view in her poem, "...

Teach your sophomores how to compare the same ideas in two different texts with a unit that uses Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights as central texts. Class members use their close reading skills to...

Who bears the most responsibility for ensuring that goods are ethically produced? Using evidence from Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science as a central text,...

Machiavelli's The Prince challenges readers to ponder the role of leadership and to consider the qualities that make a good ruler. After a close reading and discussion of Machiavelli's ideas, the five-lesson unit concludes with class...

Introduce freshmen to the writing process with a unit that shows them how to craft an informative, expository paper that addresses a research question. They learn how to develop a central claim, an engaging introduction, how to avoid...

Julia Alvarez's autobiographical essay "A Genetics of Justice," describes the impact Rafael Trujillo, the president of the Dominican Republic in the 1930s, had on the her mother. Alvarez's essay is the anchor text in a short unit that...

Research writing is all about the process. Scholars work through the steps of the investigative process in a unit that asks them to create a research portfolio, examine several possible topics, and search for resources on these topics....

Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks asks readers to consider whether the experiments on the author's mother's cells, without her consent, were worth the information gained about cancer, about gene mapping, and about...

Freshman take a stab at analyzing information texts in a unit that focuses on readers' fascination with true-crime stories and murder mysteries. Using Walter Mosely's Newsweek essay, "True Crime: The Roots of an American Obsession" as an...