MENSA Education & Research Foundation
The Writer’s Toolbox: What You Need to Master the Craft
Strengthen your high schoolers' writing with a series of steps for writing successfully. With sections on organizing an essay, choosing a topic, crafting a thesis statement, and revising a draft, the lesson encourages your class to...
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Research Project
Eighth graders research a project of their choice in relation to a career they may want. In this language arts lesson, 8th graders create a bibliography of references used both print and online sources. Students make an outline of their...
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Using Information Resources: Lesson 7
Teacher reads aloud to the students the material that is printed in boldface type inside the boxes. Information in regular type inside the boxes and all
information outside the boxes should not be read to the students. Possible
student...
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Communication: Saying No
Students read about psychology by identifying uncomfortable teenage situations. In this sexual awareness lesson, students read assigned text which discusses the importance of saying "no" when you are in a hostile or uncomfortable...
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Adventuring in the Archipelago
Students study Charles Darwin's voyage on the HMS Beagle and his visit to the Gal??pagos Islands. They click through an interactive map of the Gal??pagos Islands to read actual and fictional journal entries from a fellow eco-tourist.
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Italics or Quotation Marks?
Be sure to click "Download this Activity" to view the plan in its formatted version. The first worksheet has learners review what types of titles are italicized, underlined, or placed in quotation marks. The second page contains the...
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First-Aid Newspaper
Eighth graders research, write, edit and publish a class newspaper focusing on topics related to first aid. They research how to care for injuries and write informative articles for the paper. Students compile the articles to produce a...
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It's A Dog-Eat-Dog World
Students examine the dangers of owning and breeding aggressive dogs. They debate whether aggressive dogs should be kept as pets. They write an essay from their point of view about aggressive dogs as pets.
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Return Of The Living Dead
Students research endangered animal species that have 'beaten the odds' as they continue to survive longer than scientists had expected. They write individual pages for a class book about endangered species.
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Sea No Evil
Students research the characteristics of marine life at different ocean depths. They use their findings as the basis for a classroom 'Life Under the Sea' museum exhibit.
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Ill At Ease
Students research infectious diseases, focusing on what scientists and journalists currently do and do not know about each one. They act as scientists or journalists as they find out more about a particular infectious disease.
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Isn't It Ionic?
Students research the properties and health risks of organic chemical solvents. They create a Safety with Solvents newsletter to share with others in their school and community.
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Working Like a Dog
Students consider ways animals help human beings with certain chores, then research more specific tasks dogs are trained to do. They create a help wanted ad enumerating the traits a dog should have before applying for a particular position.
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A Positive Spin
Study word choice and connotation in advertising. Readers examine campaign ads, both negative and positive, from the 2006 mid-term election before discussing an article and analyze a campaign of any candidate they choose. Finally, they...
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Use The Polar Express to Develop Rich and Detailed Writing
Bring The Polar Express into your middle school classroom to spark the creativity of your emerging writers.
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...
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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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Invisible Invaders
Students research various epidemics that have devastated the world population focusing on the historical events taking place during the times of the epidemics and the epidemics' effects on these societies.
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Help Wanted: President of the United States
Students consider qualities and United States president should have. In this government lesson, students research the responsibilities of the president and use that information to create an advertisement that describes the job and...
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Proofreading Lesson 6
Explore proofreading strategies with this lesson. Eighth graders practice finding errors in punctuation, capitalization, and formatting. Then, they write about a given topic and then proofread their compositions, looking for errors in...
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Following Their Footsteps
Students research and create a book report on a famous person. In this character education lesson, students examine the positive traits exemplified by a famous person and present an oral presentation for their classmates.
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Using Context
Teams practice decoding and using context strategies to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words. After verifying the meanings of words through the use of dictionaries, the Internet, thesauruses, and other sources, learners write the...
Virginia Department of Education
Revising Writing
Junior high writers investigate other student’s sample writing and critique on how it could be improved. Skill emphasis is place on elaboration, voice, and sentence variety. The student writing is provided, but the checklist for revision...
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Egyptian Burial
Students research burial tombs of ancient Egypt. Acting as pharaohs of Egypt, students create burial plans to decide what items they would include in their own tombs and why. They find another student to analyze their plan.