Curated OER
Lesson Learned: Creating a Life Reports Project
Tap into the wisdom and knowledge of older members of the community with this New York Times plan. To warm up, learners write about and discuss advice they have been given. After reading "The Life Report," an op-ed column that asks older...
Deliberating in a Democracy
Cyberbullying—Alternate Lesson Plan
Should schools be permitted to punish young scholars for off-campus cyberbullying? After reading a passage that details statistics about cyberbullying and Supreme Court rulings about schools' ability to limit student speech, class...
Newseum
Is This Story Share-Worthy?
Young journalists use a "Is This Story Share-Worthy?" flowchart graphic to decide whether a story is worth sharing online. Instructors provide groups with fake news, poor quality stories, opinion pieces, biased news, and high-quality...
Historical Thinking Matters
Spanish-American War: 3 Day Lesson
Why did the United States choose to invade Cuba in 1898? As part of a 3-day lesson, your young historians will first develop working hypotheses to answer this question, then work with a variety of historical primary source documents that...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Reading Literature - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce’s short story, is used to model how structural moves, the decisions an author makes about setting, point of view, time order, etc., can be examined to reveal an author’s purpose. Groups...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
A Mini lesson on Semicolons
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-activity on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how...
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: "When Fannie Lou Hamer Said" by Mahogany L. Browne
After watching an excerpt from a video of Fannie Lou Hamer's testimony before Congress, pupils do a close reading of Mahogany L. Browne's poem "When Fannie Lou Hamer Said," annotate words and phrases that draw their attention and list...
Bantam Books
The Tempest: Linked Text Set (Pre-Reading)
Before you begin your unit on William Shakespeare's The Tempest, introduce the themes of the play with a lesson plan based on the biblical story of Joseph. Taking your high schoolers through selected text from Genesis 17-44, the lesson...
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: "Alice Paul" by Katharine Rolston Fisher
Powerful women need not look like Wonder Woman. After writing a paragraph about a strong woman they know, young scholars examine images of Alice Paul and then do a close reading of Katharine Rolston Fisher's poem "Alice Paul." Finally,...
National Endowment for the Humanities
“Every Day We Get More Illegal” by Juan Felipe Herrera
A study of Jan Felipe Herrera's poem "Every Day We Get More Illegal" opens the door for a discussion on immigration. To begin, class members examine the photograph "Desert Survival," record their observations of the image, and then...
Star Wars in the Classroom
"Shakespeare and Star Wars": Lesson Plan Day 3
To make the point that there are many forms of language, each with its own purpose, class members select 10 lines from Doescher's play, translate these lines first into contemporary English and then into "SMS/Tweet."
Common Sense Media
Private Today, Public Tomorrow
What responsibility do we have to protect the privacy and safety of others when posting information about them online? This is an essential lesson plan for every learner today experiencing their social and professional worlds in an...
Curated OER
Orienteering - Lesson 1 - Maps & Map Scales
Lesson 1 of 10 lessons in this orienteering unit is about maps and map scales. After all, orienteering is all about maps, compasses, and finding ones' way around. It is imperative to be able to read maps and understand the relevance of...
Scholastic
Reading Poems From the Academy of American Poets Chancellors
Start a lesson 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 for...
WindWise Education
How Does Energy Affect Wildlife?
Is wildlife affected the same way by different electricity generation methods? Teams work together to research four electricity generation sources and their impacts on wildlife. The teams create a summary report and share their findings.
ReadWriteThink
Decoding the Dystopian Characteristics of Macintosh’s “1984” Commercial
Known as one of the most iconic advertisements of the 20th century, Macintosh's "1984" commercial has become more of a social statement. Present the ad to a new audience of viewers with a lesson focused on identifying dystopian...
For the Teachers
Fact vs. Opinion
Many informational texts are written as factual, but can your learners determine when an opinion is presented as fact? Have your kids read several articles on the same topic and record the statements that contain either facts or...
Albert Shanker Institute
Dream Under Development
As part of their study of the 1963 March on Washington, class members do a side-by-side comparison of the original text of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" with a transcript of the speech he delivered. The take away from the...
Curated OER
Our Computers, Ourselves: Imagining the Digital Lives of Authors and Characters
The guiding question for this lesson plan is "Do computers and their contents shape who we are?" Open with a selection of Apple's commercials to introduce stereotypes and people's relationships with their computers. Then, read the...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Telescoping Periscope
Ahoy, matey! Here is an engineering expedition that mini mariners are sure to be swept away by! After reading a brief description and history of periscopes, they work in crews to construct one. Use this activity to enhance a lesson on...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to Short Story Writers Say
There are so many authors of short stories, and your class can have the chance to study quite a few. This seventh lesson plan in a series of fourteen continues the decision-making process for the final assessment: a short story author...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a great story to share with your class, and this lesson focuses on just that story! The eighth in a fourteen-lesson series on short stories, the plan has learners study some vocabulary, read the story,...
Macmillan Education
Christmas: #SadTree
Christmas trees can be as large and elaborate as the tree in Rockefeller Center, or as small and understated as Charlie Brown's tree in A Charlie Brown Christmas. But where did the tradition of Christmas trees come from? An engaging...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Characterization in Lord of the Flies
Readers of Lord of the Flies hunt down direct and indirect examples of how William Golding brings his characters to life. After instructors guide learners through the process of collecting evidence of these two types of characterization...