After watching the documentary Dark Water about a traditional Chumash ceremony and reading a Chumash origin story, viewers are asked to create a coat of arms and to craft an essay that details a family tradition or their own origin story.

As an introduction to literary criticism, class members recreate I.A. Richards' close reading experiment. Individuals select a poem, paraphrase the story, focus on the imagery used, consider what the imagery adds to the tale, and...

The Grapes of Wrath. The Jungle. Native Son. The Things They Carried. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. To address a current social, political, economic, or environmental issue, class groups pair the reading of a...

Life is a highway ... where will yours lead? Scholars pave the way toward success in the fourth of five college and career readiness lesson plans. Using the SMART system, individuals begin mapping out the steps they will follow to...

How can we create a more fair world? Chances are, class members have some ideas! After reading a text about fairness, individuals create skits around the ideas of fairness. Extend the learning and make their presentations a...

How did workers pick a trade in colonial America? Using a WebQuest approach, scholars explore life in the colonial era by looking at professions available to men like Benjamin Franklin. Individuals then apply their knowledge to create...

Introduce middle schoolers to playwriting and the elements of drama with a six-session storytelling unit that encourages kids to expand their acting and writing skills. The 12-page packet includes overviews of the lessons,...

How are forces and motion important to a swing set? Scholars explore the concepts of force and motion using swing sets. In preparation for their own STEM design project, individuals take surveys and data from peers, complete labs on...

Simulate a real-life situation with a project proposal activity for an art installation. Learners look at work by Joe Fafard and examine his website for information about public art displays. They also search for other proposals for...

The focus of the fourth unit in the Youth Risk Behavior Survey Curriculum is on healthy eating and exercise. Class members examine healthy habits data from the YRBD Youth Online Tool, learn about the importance of a healthy diet and...

Promote responsibility and camaraderie with 10 lessons on conflict resolution. Learners define conflict and teach ways to resolve it. Each lesson provides an activity and scenario for role play, and lends itself to discussion among...

The odds are in your favor that your pupils will love this lesson that uses The Hunger Games to launch a study of gender empowerment, as well as the influence of social constructs of gender. Groups discuss how Katniss Everdeen and Peeta...

Everyone learns and experiences life differently. A set of lessons about character intensities encourages middle and high schoolers to analyze themselves, their peers, and characters from a book based on the five listed intensities:...

Take learning outside and start classifying grasslands. Young ecologists observe grassland plants in order to classify them into the appropriate species by family. They note their characteristics and where they grow. A true...

Groups are each given a pack of engineering cards and a worksheet to complete together. The cards depict different roles an engineer might play and can be purchased from the eGFI website. Because the lesson plan revolves around these...

Take a break from literature study to address some grammatical concerns. Using a text you've already read in your class, show how to analyze pronoun use. After watching the master, pairs analyze a short excerpt on their own, identifying...

What are the characteristics of a good research source? At the beginning of a research project, have your class brainstorm evaluative criteria for primary and secondary source material. They then use the generated list to guide their...