McGraw Hill
Vocabulary Power
Augment your language arts units with a set of vocabulary worksheets. The packet is an excellent support to your vocabulary instruction that covers a variety of skills, including context clues, Greek and Latin roots, reference materials,...
Curated OER
Learning Vocabulary by Using Reference Materials
Finding engaging ways to help your middle schoolers build their vocabulary is not easy to do. The lesson presented here offers a great way to motivate them to build vocabulary by making it into a game. Teams of pupils use a dictionary...
Curated OER
Farewell to Manzanar
Examine human resilience across two texts with a detailed unit. Over the course of a week, learners will conduct a close reading of excerpts from Unbroken and Farewell to Manzanar. The resource includes clear procedures for reading and...
Curated OER
Phineas Gage: Notecard Vocabulary Strategy
Understanding the vocabulary in a text, especially a text like Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science that includes quite a few technical terms, can be the key to understanding the text as a whole. Learners focus on...
Curated OER
Let's Discuss Current Events
Investigate articles from the daily news and share opinions with classmates. Using current events, learners view a news program without sound and predict what news is being discussed by analyzing the visuals. Then they read news articles...
Teachers.net
How to Write a Movie Review from a Pet's Perspective
When would two paws up denote a blockbuster film in your classroom? Only when young writers create movie reviews from a pet's perspective in this imaginative expository writing practice. This engaging topic begins with a class discussion...
Curated OER
Informative Speech Assignment
Allow your pupils to take on the role of the instructor with an informative speech that covers a new topic related to your unit of study or new information on a subject your class has already studied. Pupils fill out the provided outline...
California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc
Poetic Devices
Have everything you need to know about the elements of poetry with a nine-page handout. Split into four categories—word sounds, meanings, arrangement, and imagery—budding poets may reference terms, read definitions, descriptions, and...
University of Pennsylvania
Decoding Propaganda: J’Accuse…! vs. J’Accuse…!
Reading snail mail is a great way to go back into history and to understand others' points of view. The resource, the second in a five-part unit, covers the Dreyfus Affair. Scholars, working in two different groups, read one letter and...
Curated OER
Review of a Novel Project
This review of a novel project is a great way to ensure accountability for independent reading. The assignment sheet, templates, samples, and rubrics are all part of the packet materials.
Road to Grammar
Shopping
Talk about what you bought last weekend with plenty of activities centered around the theme of shopping. English language learners have the opportunity to listen, speak, write, and read over the course of these exercises. The resource...
Energy for Keeps
The Energy Times
Extra! Extra! Read all about past and present energy use in a classroom-made historical newspaper. Useful as a cross-curricular assignment between science, history, and language arts, the project is sure to get young journalists...
Kentucky Department of Education
Kentuckians in the Civil War Era: Constructed Response Essay
What part did Kentucky play in the Civil War? A constructed response essay assignment tests to ensure scholars understand the concepts and the arguments for the causes of the Civil War. Learners must read a primary source quote and then...
Curated OER
Covering the News
Students compare the coverage of two crime stories Using local or national newspapers, news magazines and other reference materials, each group trace the "unfolding" of two crime stories: The Laci Peterson investigation plus one students
ReadWriteThink
Exploring Plagiarism, Copyright, and Paraphrasing
Plagiarism, copyright, and fair use are the focus of a three-part instructional activity designed to inform scholars of how to properly cite others' work. First, pupils use a KWL chart to begin thinking and discussing plagiarism. They...
Curated OER
Research project
Eighth graders explore reference materials and then complete a research project. In this research project lesson plan, 8th graders choose the best reference source to use. Students learn to correctly site sources for their project....
Curated OER
Let's Read the Newspaper
Students investigate the format of a typical newspaper. In this journalism lesson, students read a newspaper from a target language and discover the vocabulary associated with the news. Students work together as a newspaper group each...
Curated OER
Grammar - Revise Your Symbols
Explore the different symbols of grammar. Middle schoolers write two sentences using different symbols, including asterisks, apostrophes, and ellipses. They also read and answer guided questions.
Curated OER
Pig Products
How do you feel about cloning? This issue is highly debated, so educate your class before they participate in a similar debate! Read a New York Times article related to the use of cloned pig organs for human transplants. Groups develop...
Curated OER
Hey, Teacher, Leave My Kids Alone
What are the differences between homeschooling, traditional schooling, and unschooling? Middle and high schoolers examine the opinions of their peers on these varied types of education. After reading a New York Times article, they...
National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition
Building Vocabulary: Prefixes, Roots, and Suffixes
Word roots, prefixes, and suffixes can hold the key to determining the meaning of a host of different words. Included here are five pages of prefixes, roots, and suffixes paired with their meanings and example words.
Curated OER
Indispensable Listening Skills
It's true: listening skills have to be taught and developed. Read this story about a tiger to your high school class. Then, without giving them a copy of the story, divide them into teams and have them attempt to answer a series of...
Road to Grammar
Mastering the Present Perfect Tense
You have found a solid resource for covering the present perfect tense. Starting with explanation and examples, this resource moves quickly into a series of exercises that target specific elements of the present perfect tense. Scroll to...
Polk Bros Foundation
Answer the BIG Question with Cited Examples and Evidence
Close up your unit of study with an examination of one of the guiding or essential questions as it relates to what your class has studied and other research. Class members first write down the question. Then they note down information...