What kinds of questions could be asked with different pieces of literature? Use QAR questions to help your middle schoolers develop the skills to find information in a text. Thorough directions, a text excerpt, and a set of reading...

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...

Develop reading skills in your middle school classroom with this short reading passage. Consider assigning your class a reading strategy to practice as they read the selection. Ten reading comprehension and vocabulary-in-context...

Students examine the St. John slave revolt of 1733. In this slavery and apartheid lesson plan, students view the DVD "Slavery, Society, and Apartheid." Students respond to discussion questions regarding the content of the DVD which...

For this Columbian exchange history study guide worksheet, students read a brief overview pertaining to the Columbian exchange and then respond to a reflection question.

Students identify components of the digestive system and explain functions. They create and label a diagram of the digestive system. They watch the video "Passage of Food" and perform a proper dissection of a frog. They create a flow map...

Learners study former slave ports in the South.

Do you like astronomy? Engage your learners with this short reading passage about a boy who loves studying stars and space. After completing the reading, your middle schoolers will complete five simple recall questions. Perhaps you can...

Practice using context clues with a worksheet about making inferences. Five prompts encourage kids to interpret where each event takes place based on the details in each passage.

Middle schoolers read a novel and discuss character personality. First, they analyze a character in a novel and keep a chart or web of the character's identity, which includes specific examples from the book. They then write a script...

Eighth graders might be intimidated about going to high school and they may not think they'll ever go to college. Ease those fears while making college readiness an eighth grade reality. In teams, pupils fill out several worksheets while...

Identify the author's organizational pattern for expressing ideas. After reading an article on the California Gold Rush, middle schoolers determine the author's purpose for writing a passage of informational text. A full list of...

Middle and high schoolers identify how to discover a word's meaning by exploring context clues and any pictures, diagrams, photographs, and charts that might be included. They continue this process with other examples and locate one on...

Are you looking for a way to teach sequence of events in your narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson plan to your middle school class, as it prompts young writers to create a narrative sequence map of events that have happened at...

Engage in an activity that focuses on the concepts of formal and informal language use. Middle and high schoolers compare and contrast each style by using a Venn diagram that includes some examples. They read and hear a passage of lyrics...

Practice vocabulary skills with this word analysis lesson. Middle schoolers examine the roots of unfamiliar words and use their knowledge of roots to discern meaning through word analysis.

Students read one of the following books: Minn of the Mississippi, Paddle-to-the-Sea, or Seabird, all by Holling C. Holling, and identify the five themes of geography as well as make a literature journal with chapter field notes. They...

Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...

What's theme, and can texts of every length have one? Explore the themes of fives short reading passages with your middle school class. Encourage them to highlight specific places in the text where they recognized the theme. 

Students use the internet to conduct research on the continent of Antarctica. As a class, they review the continent's climate and the reasons behind the cold temperatures. After reading an article, they draw a picture of what they...

Students identify the main ideas in a passage from literature, and in a painting, and justify their conclusions using logic and language arts skills.

Eighth graders define tone and determine the tone of a particular passage making a web of tone words on Inspiration. They write a journal entry expressing how a piece of music makes them feel and create a PowerPoint to share.

Students examine primary sources to gain historical perspectives. For this historical analysis lesson, students analyze documents that their instructors have adapted to make more user-friendly. Example adapted primary documents are...

Need a quick assessment of your middle schoolers' reading comprehension skills? The four questions on this quiz ask readers to identify the likely source of the article, define words based on context, and identify the main idea of the...