Curated OER
Voices from Little Rock: Understanding the Civil Rights Movement through Primary Sources
As part of a study of the Civil Rights Movement, class members examine documents associated with the Little Rock Nine, the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution, and chapters from Melba...
Curated OER
Unit 2: Post-Revolution: The Critical Period 1781-1878
The post-Revolutionary Period of 1781-1787, also known as the Critical Period, is the focus of a series of lessons that prompt class members to examine primary source documents that reveal the instability of the period of the Articles of...
Curated OER
Unit 1: Building Historical Background Knowledge: The Road to Revolution 1754–1776
What were the conditions that led to the American Revolution? What are the conditions that lead to revolution in other times and places? Class members examine primary source materials and use evidence drawn from these documents to craft...
Word Up Project
Mini Games
You've got a few minutes left at the end of class to practice vocabulary, but what can you do other than call out a word and ask for definitions? Play one of these 12 quick games! Each game is explained in detail and easy to modify for...
National Endowment for the Humanities
“House by the Railroad”: A Painting and a Poem for the Common Core
Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading of the two...
National Endowment for the Humanities
A “New English” in Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”: A Common Core Exemplar
To examine the “New English” Chinua Achebe uses in Things Fall Apart, readers complete a series of worksheets that ask them to examine similes, proverbs, and African folktales contained in the novel. Individuals explain the meaning...
Curated OER
Magical Musical Tour: Using Music Lyrics to Teach Literary Elements
While music lyrics are often used to teach literary elements, the richness of this resource comes from the wealth of exercises, activities, and support materials provided in the packet. Although designed for gifted learners, the...
Curated OER
"Their Eyes Were Watching God": Folk Speech and Figurative Language
Using or considering using Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God? Then this packet is a must for your curriculum library. The examination of how Hurston combines folklore and folk language to create the voice of her...
Curated OER
Vocabulary and Concept Development
After introducing your class to root words and affixes, present them with this short review and practice opportunity. To start, they share definitions of root words and affixes with their partners. Then, after looking at some affixes and...
Curated OER
Improve Your Spelling with the Visual Thesaurus
Using Visual Thesaurus software, class members participate in a computer-based spelling bee. Then they work in groups to analyze the words and use deductive reasoning to infer spelling patterns. They then present one of their "rules" to...
Curated OER
Go for the Gold!
The options are vast with this Ancient Greece and Olympics research project! Using Scholastic online resources, historians have interactive and educational supports to guide them through researching and writing about the 2004 Olympics in...
Curated OER
Sustainable Livestock
Young scholars investigate healthy eating habits by researching livestock. In this food sustainability instructional activity, students research the negative impact factory farming has on our environment due to pollution. Young scholars...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Reference Guides (English III Reading)
An interactive resource introduces users to dictionaries, glossaries, and thesauri and the significant differences among these reference guides. Users learn which reference is best for which kind of search, examine sample entries from...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Cognates (English III Reading)
Did you know that "30-40 percent of all words in English have a related word in Spanish?" This fact launches an interactive study of cognates appearing the same in English and Spanish. Learners demonstrate what they have learned about...
Curated OER
An Ideal for Which I Am Prepared to Die
English language learners have an opportunity to closely examine the academic language in portions of Nelson Mandela's famous 1964 Court Speech, "An Ideal for Which I Am Prepared to Die," with a lesson that looks at key passages from the...
English Club
Health Phrasal Verbs
Health phrasal verbs are the focus of a two-page worksheet. Language learners match health phrasal verbs with their meanings, match the first part of sentences with the proper conclusion, select the correct particles to complete...
English Club
Verbs Associated with Housework
A two-page worksheet focuses on verbs associated with household chores. Intermediate language learners match phrasal verbs with their definitions and complete sentences and answer a series of "would you rather" questions. Learners...
English Club
Romance and Relationships
Romance and relationships are the subjects of an ESL worksheet designed for intermediate language learners. Class members match 10 sentences with the correct endings, match verbs with their correct definitions, and complete sentences...
English Club
Verbs Associated with Travel
An ESL vocabulary worksheet focuses on verbs associated with travel. Intermediate language learners complete 10 sentences using the correct verb, match five verbs with their definitions, and complete five sentences using the correct...
Learning for Justice
Marian Wright Edelman
Marian Wright Edelman's 2014 Commencement Speech at Lewis and Clark College serves to inspire young scholars to investigate a problem in their community, to determine why the problem is important, and then to develop a plan for one thing...
Learning for Justice
Mary McLeod Bethune
Young historians conduct a close reading of the text of an interview with Mary McLeod Bethune, the daughter of former slaves who taught herself to read, grew up to establish schools for other Black women, and went on to become an advisor...
Learning for Justice
Mary Church Terrell
Excerpts from an 1898 speech by civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell offers young scholars an opportunity to investigate how Black American women fought for civil rights long before Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement of the...
British Council
Dictionary Skills for Secondary Students
Pop quiz! Learners work in groups to answer questions on a quiz about dictionary skills. They then work to create a dictionary skill quiz of their own. Groups exchange quizzes and race to find all of the answers.
British Council
Snack Facts - Recording Vocabulary
What's in a word? Scholars look at a sentence written on the board about snacks. They discuss unfamiliar terms and then record the new words by drawing a picture, writing a synonym, writing a translation, or creating a mind map. Pupils...