Start a lesson plan on poetic voice with a peer to peer discussion on what characterizes the strength in the voice with which a writer chooses to express himself/herself. In pairs, readers are tasked with reading and creating T-charts...

Here is a poetry instructional activity that begins with a free-association activity focused on the word voice. Learners each sit alone for a moment and make sounds that express how they are currently feeling, and then turn to their...

To celebrate National Poetry Month, young writers focus on the role letter writing has played in the development of poets. They begin by journaling three to five associations to a writing prompt that requires them to identify their...

All the tools (and directions) you’ll need  to build an essay are included in a resource designed for learners and educators. The packet can be given to class members or divided into sections and used as part of a series of lesson...

View Byzantine architecture from the comfort of your classroom. A PowerPoint presentation introduces important vocabulary terms and examples of Byzantine architecture in the ninth lesson of the 11-part series. A Jeopardy game reviews...

How can opinions slant facts? Workshop participants learn how to examine primary and secondary sources and identify the author's point of view. They also examine how visual art impacts the meaning and rhetoric of sources. Full of...

Middle and high schoolers are walking into a world rife with strong political viewpoints and vocal opinions. Help to prepare them for controversial discussions with a instructional activity in which they choose, research, and learn more...

Students consider the nature of objectivity and subjectivity in photography as an art form by taking a class poll, discussing the results and writing a one-page paper.

Upper graders having skills in music performance will extend their abilities through creative musical composition. They'll use Finale 2000 to explore facets of music composition, they'll then compose a piece for their instrument in C, F,...

Have your class create acrostic poems for characters in The Hobbit. First, define acronyms and work together to complete sample acronyms for their own first names. Students then research specific characters in the novel and create...

Students examine World War I and its consequences. In this World War I lesson, students watch the Discovery video "World War I and Its Aftermath." Students then research how nationalism contributed to the spread of the war...

An introductory activity shows learners how pervasive and influential advertising is in our culture; particularly, how teenagers are actively targeted by advertisers. As teenagers, your students already have all the information they need...

Children have rights! Exploring those rights and using media to express those rights is the focus of this Media Awareness Network lesson. Although some of the law links reflect the Canadian Articles of The Convention, the majority of the...

Teach young adults how to become advocates for their privacy in the modern information age. In a series of five lessons, learners explore their beliefs and opinions about privacy vs. the actual laws regarding who has the right to access...

Study cause and effect in both literature and informational text with a lesson designed for several different reading levels. After kids review the concept of cause and effect, they read an article or story and note the causes and...

A bird that's afraid of flying? See what happens to this character when it's time to fly south. Over the course of the activity, pupils discuss fears in general, share their fears, make predictions about the film, and view the film. The...

How should pupils read short stories? Set them up for this unit with an introductory lesson that goes over the main characteristics of a short story and starts learners off reading their first short story of the unit. In order to get a...

Create the ultimate miniature golf course. The 93-page model curriculum unit from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education contains nine lessons on understanding similarity in terms of both Euclidean geometry...

Explore different methods of architectural rendering and technical drawing. Pupils learn about cross hatching, parallel line rendering, random line rendering, rubbing, shading, and stippling in the second lesson of the series of 11....

Don't cry over broken pottery. A cross-curricular lesson plan challenges pupils to consider how to restore ancient pottery. Using a computer program and their knowledge of transformations, they come up with a way to recreate the original...

After reading and analyzing two narrative memoirs, middle schoolers engage in a variety of activities, including writing an essay, developing a story map, and creating character charts. They then compare and contrast story maps, and...

Students complete a unit of lessons examining the cultural context of the novel, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' They write a critique of the novel, compare/contrast two published critiques, and explore various websites.

Connect a scene from a class play to events in your middle and high schoolers' own lives. First, they act out a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream in pairs. They work to role play a scene as an extension of the one they have read,...

Learners discover characterization techniques and methods. In this characterization lesson, students choose favorite fiction characters and discuss what makes a character come alive. Learners then describe a family member or a friend and...