Picture books aren't just for primary learners. Your scholars compare and contrast literary themes between the novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and the children's book, The Dream Tree by Winfried...

What does your class know about the 1960s? Introduce your unit on S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders with a K-W-H-L chart, which encourages kids to list what they already know about the time period, what they would like to know, how they...

Give your class a lesson in logical reasoning. This instructional activity, which focuses on ad hominem arguments, goes step by step through an example. After examining the argument, learners assess a second conversation for ad...

Encourage the knights and princesses in your class to practice adjective clauses and relative pronouns in a fairy tale-themed presentation! Several slides review the structure of sentences with adjective clauses before prompting your...

In an exercise from the Purdue Online Writing Lab, learners can review 11 rules for comma usage. They then either label 21 sample sentences C for correct as is, or they identify which rule of comma usage is being broken. Though the...

Ten sentences provide practice in using accept or except correctly. Good for use after you review the meanings of these two commonly confused words. Online, the key is visible from the same page as the exercise. When you print it,...

Let your class voice their opinions with a group debate activity. Before reading John Milton's Paradise Lost, they work in small groups in assigned roles to form a position about authority and rebellion, comparing a...

"What is George upset about? Check all that apply." Here's a instructional activity that asks readers to delve more deeply into character attitudes and motivations. In addition, Part II asks individuals to record passages from that text...

Use this handout to focus on the character traits of George and Lennie in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Readers are given a set of specific traits to search for in the first chapter. They are required to list two textual examples of...

Grow vocabulary skills with an understanding of affixes and word roots. Included here are a few activities and plenty of materials you can use to support your learners as the focus on building vocabulary.

What will you do when you grow up? What are you going to do after school is over? Learn about future time clauses and how they connect to independent clauses with a helpful grammar presentation.

A brief introductory presentation illustrates many images from Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. From berries to black bears, young readers take a quick trip through Alaska during a class reading unit.

You've got your topic—now how do you make your poem funny? Explore ways to make a poem humorous, including puns, exaggeration, silly words, and surprising endings, with a helpful poetry lesson.

Does pajamas rhyme with llamas to you? If it does (and even if it doesn't), an online lesson on rewording poetry for regional pronunciation may be helpful for you and your students.

We're off to see the wizard! Practice making inferences in literature with two sample paragraphs from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Each passage provides questions about the pleasantness of the place it describes, and...

Reading about history is nothing like experiencing it firsthand. Encourage your eighth graders to do the next best thing with a historical narrative prompt, in which they describe the experience of a first-time traveler on the...

When is a preposition not a preposition? Learn about the role prepositions play in a slideshow presentation about phrasal verbs. As the class watches the presentation, they reinforce their skills with practice activities.

Story chains connect literary concepts, reinforce context clues, and even help learners predict what's coming next! Using words from the next chapter of Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons, middle schoolers craft story chains to...

Of all the amendments found in The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment contains some of the most important freedoms for American citizens. A unit plan on the First Amendment features interactive lesson plans designed to teach about those...

Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...

Work on narrative writing with this lesson, in which middle schoolers analyze the characters from a selected piece of literature and write narrative diary pieces as the character. They work to understand the point of view of the...

Learning how to make accurate inferences by putting together facts found in multiple sources is one of those skills all learners must develop, but one that can be a challenge to teach. This resource is a must-have for your curriculum...

Pupils analyze art in a museum and write an essay about the responsibilities of museum professionals. In this museum and art lesson, students identify the roles of an art museum. Pupils evaluate the ability of a museum to fulfill its own...

Students compare the role of a marchand-mercier to that of a modern-day business counterpart and write a persuasive letter. In this French art lesson, students discuss the role of the marchand-mercier in French design and role-play his...