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Playground Safety Check
Students study a playground safety checklist, conduct a safety check of the schoolyard and/or local playground and write a report about their findings, # present the report to school or community leaders
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Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press
Learners use library or online resources to create time lines on the life of Johannes Gutenberg and tell the impact his invention, the printing press, had on the development of newspapers.
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Cutting Costs With Coupons.
Students clip coupons for food items, create a menu using those items, and add up the total savings. They correctly calculate the total amount of money that would be saved if they used the coupons.
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So You Want to Be a Copy Editor?
Explore what a copy editor does and take a copyediting test. Pupils practice spelling while identifying the skills and knowledge necessary for a career in journalism. The resource is well done.
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"Memories of Mom" Memento
Students brainstorm a list of writing topics for a "Memories of Mom" book, choose one of the topics as the subject of a daily essay and combine a week of daily essays into a book to give their mothers for Mother's Day.
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The Betsy Ross Story: Truth or Legend?
Students discover that some historians question the story of Betsy Ross's involvement in the creation of the first U.S. flag, study why historians question the story and list reasons the story of Betsy Ross might not be true.
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The Perfect Pet
Young scholars take on role of an associate in a pet shop and help imaginary customers compare pets for sale.
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Pet Pellets
Students create and design advertising for a tempting new pet food! They create an imaginary pet food, analyze and identify types of propaganda and design packaging and advertising for the pet food.
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The Problem with Profiling
Students explore the issue of racial profiling and post their conclusions to a youth message board. They research the issue of racial profiling and post their thoughts to a message board.
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What Makes the Writer Write
Your 11th and 12th graders are ready to critique society! Channel that inclination by studying a novel that offers social criticism of other eras (book recommendations included). This resource presents a well-thought-out overview of such...
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Writing a Newspaper-Style Article
Help your secondary reader/writers assess texts by studying press releases from Statistics Canada and drafting articles based on them. They then compare the press release, their own articles, and actual news stories they find online. I'd...
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A Study of Twentieth Century British Culture through Art and Literature
Here’s an interesting approach to the analysis of similar subjects in different mediums. Based on the methodology of Professor Jules Prown, learners apply his three stages (description, deduction, and speculation) to a painting and a...
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Looking Back - An Art/English/History Interdisciplinary Unit
Students research historical events of the past century to recognize that society impacts the themes within art and literature. They then interview an individual to develop a biographical narrative, a collage and finally an oral...
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All the World's a Stage
Is the circus a form of theater? Read "A City of Clowns? What Else Is New?" to sway your class that a circus, is indeed, a theatrical performance. Critical thinkers compare/contrast various forms of theater and identify what makes the...
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Gandhi Speech Writing
Explore non-violent protest in this social values and world history lesson. After viewing the movie Gandhi, and discussing important events in Gandhi's life, young orators write a speech defending Gandhi's position on the value of...
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12 Days of Christmas
Young scholars utilize different problem-solving strategies and creative writing when dealing with the words from the song, "12 Days of Christmas." They try to problem solve how may presents were given and then explain their sequence in...
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"Every Block, Every Borough"
From the New York Times Learning Network series, this worksheet poses 10 questions on an article entitled, "Leaving His Footprint on the City" about a man planning to walk every street in all five New York boroughs. The prompts address...
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Reading for Information
What should readers do to prepare for reading an informational text? What should they do during their reading? What should they do after completing such a text? Introduce your pupils to reading strategies and techniques to gain meaning...
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Strong Convictions
How can the rhetorical structure of an editorial help to develop its argument? Use this New York Times editorial to emphasize the importance of structure in a piece of informational text. Adolescent writers then use the editorial as a...
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Metaphor Meanings
Help your young writers decipher the literal meanings of metaphors. After reading several metaphors, learners write the real meanings that the phrases are describing. Use this resource in a figurative language lesson, or when preparing...
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Thesis statements: The Six Basic Claim Types
Evaluative or Analogical? The wolf in the story of "The Three Little Pigs" and the wolf in "Red Riding Hood" represent what can happen to the unprepared. Despite his defeat in the end, the Big Bad Wolf is a good example for kids because...
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What Are Homophones?
A fun activity for homework, a warm-up, or a substitute day! Learners choose the correct word out of a set of homophones, such as made/maid and pale/pail, based on context clues in each sentence. There are twenty-two questions in all....
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Grammar Practice: Restrictive vs. Non-Restrictive Clauses
Go over the basics of restrictive and non-restrictive clauses with this grammar worksheet. After reviewing the concepts, as well as the definitions of parentheticals and appositives, young learners label ten sentences as restrictive or...
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A Victorian Vocabulary Challenge
Introduce your high schoolers to some tough vocabulary. No, I'm not talking about the SAT list! Revisit Victorian literature to find tricky words we still use today. Using the Visual Thesaurus, learners will preview vocabulary in a quote...