A simple cloze activity gets learners developing a comfort level with sexual development terminology. For Activity 1, they use 12 terms to fill in 11 blanks in an informational text, including sperm, eggs, sex hormones, puberty,...

What makes a character believable? Have learners write a response to this question by explaining why they found the characters in a given story or novel to be believable or not believeable.

Students participate in various activities using the story There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. In this reading fluency instructional activity, students read the story and then practice comprehension, fluency, and writing. An...

Finding engaging ways to help your middle schoolers build their vocabulary is not easy to do. The lesson presented here offers a great way to motivate them to build vocabulary by making it into a game. Teams of pupils use a dictionary...

Fifth graders explore the Adventures of Don Quixote in a four-week language arts unit. Scholars listen to and discuss a new chapter each day as well as examine vocabulary and practice word work including suffixes, subject-verb agreement,...

Middle schoolers receive a handout that lists the five types of context clues. The class divides up into groups of three or four, and each group chooses five unfamiliar words. They write a multiple-choice question for each of their five...

Fifty eye-catching pages contain six lessons about Roald Dahl's novel, Matilda. Each lesson has a theme and covers a different subject—literacy, social-emotional learning, science, and geography. Scholars analyze characters, examine...

How do the citizens of Polyglot celebrate New Year's Eve? Middle and high schoolers read about the history of the dropping ball on New Year's Eve, as well as the other holidays traditions that have gone by the wayside, before designing a...

Students choose a book and read it with a partner throughout the week. They discuss and evaluate the text with their partner as well as complete a question form. They desing and choose a way to present their book to their peers in the...

Students participate in several activities using a reading partner. They plan and organize reading meetings with their partner, and then review story elements by retelling the stories orally. The partners question each other and make...

Students learn to use prediction to think more deeply about literature. In this reading comprehension lesson, students chart predictions in order to more fully understand text.

Students learn about the colonists that settled in the New World.  In this famous explorers lesson, students learn about famous explorers and how they used to keep diaries about their travels.  Students read passenger lists...

In this Jerusalem learning exercise, students respond to 9 short answer questions about the holy city after they read the attached reading selection about the city.

Take an in-depth look into the vocabulary from the novel, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. With a list of words to choose from, scholars discover the definition, origin, stories associated with...

Creatively develop and reinforce new vocabulary from the book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, using these vocabulary squares. Each square is divided into four quadrants asking scholars to input the word, a...

After reading each chunk of two chapters of Carl Hiaasen's novel Hoot, ask learners to respond to related study questions. The instructions at the top of the questions suggest that individuals should read the questions first, read the...

Identify the main idea and the supporting details of a story in a literacy resource from Discovery Education. Complete with procedures, vocabulary, and assessment activities, this is a great way for pupils to practice their outlining...

Develop an online newspaper covering the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The class publishes their newspaper on the school's Web site and analyze both primary and secondary sources.

Pencil in the resource on writing verbal phrases into your lesson plans. The 15th installment of a 36-part module has scholars write verbal phases for algebraic expressions. They complete a set of problems to solidify this skill.

The Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Young archeologists investigate the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, map their locations, and match their names with brief descriptions and images....

Help middle schoolers develop healthy relationships with a series of activities that teaches them not only to recognize and protect themselves from unhealthy relationships, but also how to develop and maintain positive ones. In addition,...

Discover what's behind an online search. Scholars read a handout and engage in discussions to learn how to critically evaluate online search results. Then, working in small groups, they create posters listing their demands for search...

Let's eat! Scholars read pages 24-25 of The Inuit Thought of It to discover the foods eaten by the Inuit. They sketch a visual gist of the section in their journals and write a summary paragraph about the text.

Class members brainstorm a list of people in the news (immigrants, millennials, etc.). Teams then select one to research. Using the provided worksheet and guided by a list of questions, the teams examine the stereotypes in news reports...