Maybe dark clouds do have a silver lining. Just when Percy from The Lightning Thief thought of his life as doomed, he learned that his father is a Greek god. Scholars work through activities as they read how his life took a drastic...

Do wolves ever attack humans? An informative novel study for Old Wolf helps pupils conduct research to answer the question. They also decode anagrams, learn about onomatopoeia, and write quatrain poems about themes from the novel. 

Julilly dreams of freedom after being taken from her mother by a slave trader. Will she ever be free again? A resource focuses on the first chapter of Barbara Smucker's book Underground to Canada, and includes 10 vocabulary...

Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American fiction writer whose biggest claim to fame was the creation of Tarzan. Using the novel study for Harper Lee's beloved novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, pupils research and list facts about him or another...

Have you ever gone looking for one thing but ended up discovering something else? That is exactly what happened to Gaylen, a character in The Search for Delicious. Gaylen begins looking for a food to label as delicious, but...

If you were stranded on a deserted island, what book would you want with you? Robinson Crusoe of course! During his years stuck on an island, Crusoe learns to survive by making a canoe, finding food, and living in solitude. Scholars read...

Yo-ho-ho, Treasure Island can be lots of fun with the aid of a resource that guides readers' exploration of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of buccaneers and buried gold. It's the glory of the read that will turn your...

What do cereal, fog, and space shuttles have to do with newspapers? A collection of science investigations encourage critical thinking using connections to the various parts of the newspaper. Activities range from building origami seed...

Readers are asked to evaluate Helen Keller's claim, and the evidence she uses to support her argument, that it is more difficult for hearing impaired children to learn to talk with others.

How can a screenplay create meaning and drama in ways that other forms of writing cannot? That is the question class members must answer as they compare the cantina scene of the screenplay for George Lucas's Star Wars: A New Hope...

What do wizards smell like? A novel study for Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy walks readers through chapter one to help them answer the question. Scholars also practice vocabulary from the chapter and invent original similes.

What items would most people want to have with them if they were stranded on a desert island? Using the novel study for The Swiss Family Robinson, scholars attempt to answer the question from their own perspectives. They also explore...

Invite your pupils to express their understanding of a novel through a collaborative video project. Groups choose a novel from those you have studied in class, select four scenes, storyboard the scenes, film the scenes, edit the film,...

High school scholars learn valuable information about how to run a newspaper in the third and final installment of a media literacy series. The unit scaffolds learners to success with background information before they plan for...

Prepare for any writing assignment with a series of prewriting activities. The resource includes instruction sheets, graphic organizers for brainstormng, and sample writing prompts.

How does an author's choice of artistic medium influence an audience? What about how an author chooses to transform original source material? These are the questions class members grapple with as they compare scenes from episode IV...

Young readers work on evaluating claims in a piece of informational text with the article "In New York, It's Open Bag or Find Exits" from the New York Times. They analyze current search procedures implemented to fight terrorism...

Assign this narrative essay after finishing Puddn'head Wilson. Learners write about their own experiences with overcoming obstacles. A five-step process is laid out on this assignment page.

To conclude their study of James McBride's The Color of Water, class members create their own memoir, focusing on a family member who help shape their life.

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...

The Yukon provides plenty of opportunity for adventure. A study guide for The Call of the Wild by Jack London, also the author of White Fang, helps readers navigate the novel which is set in Yukon, Canada. Chapter summaries give a...

Readers of all ages can work together in groups to create original poetry on the theme of "Imagine," inspired by John Lennon's classic song. They also create a mural to illustrate their poetry. A beautiful lesson, inspired by a beautiful...

Bring the historical relevance of baseball into the classroom, as pupils discover the lessons learned from the breaking of baseball's color barrier by Jackie Robinson. Learners view video and analyze Robinson’s character, as well as his...

Analyze the use of balanced sentences and parallelism in a narrative. Included in this resource is a narrative about serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan titled, "The Train Ride Home". Middle and high schoolers review...