Odell Education
Reading Closely For Textual Details: Grade 8
Only a thorough understanding of history can save us from repeating it. Practice close reading skills with an eighth grade unit that focuses on 19th century America, including European immigration into Ellis Island and Frederick...
Ogden Museum of Art Education Department
Literacy and Landscapes
As the saying goes, art often imitates life ... and literature! A series of activities designed to accompany a visit to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art encourage writers to find inspiration in various landscapes. The lesson includes a...
Curated OER
Anonymous Sources in the Media
When do people ask for anonymity? Why? After reading the New York Times article "For a Reporter and a Source, Echoes of Broken Promise," young readers participate in a roundtable discussion focusing on freedom of the press and the use of...
Museum of Tolerance
Developing Media Literacy
To protect young people from questionable content, many schools limit access. This resource suggests that because learners can so readily avail themselves to unrestricted Internet access, it is vital for 21st century learners to develop...
Centers for Ocean Sciences
Ocean and Great Lakes Literacy: Principle 7
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take your class on an underwater adventure. The final installment in a seven-part series involving salt and freshwater bodies takes junior oceanographers below the surface in...
Curated OER
The Bernstein Bear's Trouble with Money: Financial and Academic Literacy
What do figures of speech have to do with financial literacy? Take an interdisciplinary look at The Berenstain Bears' Trouble with Money to find out. Young analysts read about the cubs' spendthrift ways and how Mama and Papa Bear teach...
National Center for Families Learning
The Summer Fun Summer Learning Dramatic and Story Reading Unit
What's the difference between story reading and story telling? Participants in a summer enrichment program learn all about the difference as they listen to famous speeches, engage in dramatic readings, and craft their own short stories...
ReadWriteThink
Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising
Commercial advertising—we can't get away from it, but do we realize just how often we are being advertised to? With this lesson, scholars analyze mass media to identify how its techniques influence our daily lives. Learners browse...
Social Media Toolbox
Social Media Usage
Is there a difference in the way organizations present news via social media and in print? The third in a series of 16 lessons from The Social Media Toolbox explores news outlets and their delivery methods. Groups follow a story for a...
Nemours KidsHealth
Media Literacy and Health: Grades 6-8
Internet suffers could drown in the volume of information available on line. Here's an activity that can be a lifeline and buoy confidence in middle schoolers' ability to find reliable information and credible sources. After reading...
K20 LEARN
OPTIC - A Reading Strategy Recipe: Visual Literacy
A visual literary lesson provides learners with OPTIC (Observations, Predictions, Themes, Inferences, Conclusions), a reading strategy to help them understand and interpret visual and written texts. Scholars practice the strategy with a...
Annenberg Foundation
Reading Maps
Can you read a map? Scholars use an interactive technology tool to analyze maps of various kinds to gather evidence and data to better understand their meanings and usefulness. Using newly obtained knowledge, they form an interpretation...
PBS
How to Teach Your Students about Fake News
What media literacy skills do people need to evaluate a news source? Scholars listen to and discuss an NPR story about how fake headlines often dupe young people and adults alike. Next, they study news stories, using a fact-checking...
Curated OER
Is Social Media a Trustworthy News Outlet?
Examine the role of social media in social and political uprisings. Pupils listen to NPR audio clips about social media and the Arab Spring and read an article that proposes the idea that revolution will not happen through social media....
National Museum of the American Indian
Fritz Scholder: A Study Guide
In this engaging activity involving close analysis of abstract expressionist art, your class members will not only discover more about artist Friz Scholder's Native American art, but they will also have the opportunity to consider...
DocsTeach
Fannie Lou Hamer and Voting Rights
To understand the challenges Black voters faced in Mississippi, middle schoolers first gather background information about Fannie Lou Hamer and then read her testimony given during the 1964 Democratic Nation Convention. After a...
Social Media Toolbox
Social Media Roles
Social media has changed the news publishing process, so how does it affect school news publications? Lesson nine in a 16-part series titled The Social Media Toolbox explores the traditional publishing roles through the lens of social...
Media Smarts
The Impact of Gender Role Stereotypes
One of three lessons on gender stereotype, this resource from the Media Awareness Network discusses the violence that is inflicted on men and women as they try to live up to the stereotypes of their gender. The section on women focuses...
Curated OER
Cyberbullying: Effects on Teens Across the Nation (Segment 3)
Free speech, privacy, and cyberbullying are the focus of a series of activities that prompt class members to engage in discussions about these interrelated topics. They view a segment from PBS’s series on bullying, read articles about...
Macmillan Education
A Wrinkle in Time Discussion and Activity Guide
As you work through Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, try out some or all of the 20 questions and activities included here. Useful for discussion questions, group assignments, or individual projects, this resource covers plot as...
Curated OER
Taking Age into Account
Have your class consider the issue of minors' accountability for their crimes. They discuss specific cases and the general issue of juvenile crime in round table discussions. Use this activity to emphasize the rules and individual roles...
Curated OER
Don't Believe the Type: Internet Ethics
What is Internet fraud? Explore Internet ethics and engage in a collaborative discussion. In order to create a Guide to Internet Honesty, learners read and discuss the article "A Beautiful Life, A Tragic Death, a Fraud Exposed." Then...
Curated OER
Conversation Lesson: Internet Craze
Learning to support your opinions, debate, build arguments, and effectively respect another's point of view are vital skills. Learners work through a series of topics to practice discussion engagement and verbal communication.
Curated OER
Reading Blog Log
Bring technology to your novel unit with this lesson, which prompts readers to analyze a book they are reading in a Socratic discussion with their classmates. They create a live blog online in which they can give their opinions and...