What exactly does sociology entail? Sociology is a broad field that covers many topics, including culture, mass media, and social movements. A helpful handout prepares scholars for typical writing found in college-level sociology...

How many pairs of Nikes® or Apple® products are in the average American home? What makes someone buy one particular type of laundry detergent over another? Scholars grapple with these questions as they develop a list of brands they use...

Help the class uncover the story of Frankenstein. Learners answer questions and complete activities to respond to the text Frankenstein as they read. Scholars learn new vocabulary, respond to personal and text-dependent questions,...

Do not let Julius Caesar be Greek to your pupils. Rather, make the play a dish fit for hungry minds. Encourage your class members to lend their ears to a series of rich discussion questions so that they can become masters of the play, as...

How does the particular point of view in a situation affect the way it is presented? Focusing on perspectives on slavery during the Civil War, middle schoolers use research to write narratives from the points of view of their historical...

Especially critical following a series of shootings in schools, theaters, and religious buildings, it's safe to say that we need to evaluate the current laws on gun control. Eighth graders read a New York Times article in order to better...

High schoolers examine World War I poetry for historical context, poetic devices, and participate in a class discussion. They write an analysis of the poetry's form and its content.

Students identify principal causes of the Great Depression. They analyze causes including a decline in worldwide trade, the stock market crash, and bank failures and explain the legacy of the Depression in American society.

Use primary text documents to learn word roots. Learners listen to a reading of the Declaration of Independence and highlight words they don't know. They compile these words and guess their meanings. They discuss roots, prefixes,...

The elements of music and journalistic integrity in one lesson; What could be better? The class discusses journalistic approaches to better understand responsible reporting versus sensationalism. They watch the Act One from the film...

Students compare the situation of Latin American immigrants with the situation of immigrants from other areas of the world. They use media to obtain information on topics of academic interest, personal interest, and intellectual interest.

Students interview a veteren of any of the major U.S. wars. They must identify one quote from the veteren that sums up their experience.

Examine the contributions of African-Americans in the worlds of art and literature. Over the course of a few days, young scholars will read and analyze a poem, a short story, and a piece of art. They complete a range of...

Students answer assigned questions as a group, write individual essays, complete a research project, and complete a writing project.

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is famous, in part, because it established a uniquely American form of humor. For this famous story, Mark Twain combines the tall-tale, the dialect story, and satire. Here is a resource...

Engage your middle schoolers with Pastor Martin Niemoller's famous poem that begins, "First they came for the communists." Now that you have their attention, send learners to the various work stations you created to have them explore...

Quidditch anyone? Here's a fun way to introduce your class to the resources available in the library as well as on the Internet. Researchers create an outline of the sources they locate about Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, quidditch, and...

Have your class examine the characteristics of various writing genres using the Writing with Writers online project. Detailed instructions for how to introduce, discuss, and develop a piece of writing for each genre are included. Class...

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,...

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...

Students examine the cultural tradition of storytelling. In this storytelling lesson, students explore stories from 3 different cultures and evaluate the roles that storytelling plays in each of the cultures to pass on values and beliefs.

Help your class remember how to cite different sources. Reviewed on this two-page document are books, articles from a database, articles from a magazine, and websites. Examples are provided, and learners use the charts to fill in the...

After reading Flannery O'Connor's short stories, provide your high schoolers with these questions. You could use these to prompt higher level thinking for an upcoming test, or provide them as essay prompts. 

In this online interactive reading comprehension worksheet, students respond to 15 multiple choice questions based on The Worldly Philosophers. Students may submit their answers to be scored.