Dictionaries, thesauruses, word walls, oh my! Pupils use several resources to revise their position papers to include appropriate vocabulary. Then, after peer editing, scholars write the final drafts of their essays and self-assess using...

To middle schoolers, there's nothing worse than being excluded from a peer group. Developing important self-esteem skills can not only get them through awkward adolescent times, it can carry them through the rest of their lives as...

What important facts about Dr. Seuss influenced the Read Across America movement...? This is the driving question of a research project that requires scholars to find information about Dr. Seuss' life and work. Class...

"Who am I?" is not only a great philosophical question that requires a lot of reflection but is also at the heart of a letter of introduction. The challenge, of course, is figuring out where to start. Middle schoolers get a little help...

Even the most inspiring documents in American history had to go through a few drafts before they were ready for publication. Reinforce the importance of the writing process, as well as the collaborative nature of democracy, with an...

Continue work on the two-piece poem that compares two characters from Esperanza Rising. Give class members a few minutes to finish their drafts. After they have a complete product, model how to critique and edit the poems with one group....

Introduce young poets to Blackout Poetry. Much like Found Poems, Blackout Poetry challenges scholars to rethink the process writers may use to craft their poems. After watching a short video in which poet Austin Kleon describes his...

After completing three body paragraphs of an argument essay about life's rules to live by from Bud, Not Buddy Christopher Paul Curtis, it's time to begin writing the introduction and conclusion. Independently, pupils draft the final two...

After reading Elvira Woodruff's George Washington's Socks, young readers and writers embark upon writing their own historically based story, with a focus on developing ideas and details throughout the piece. In small groups, class...

Entrance essays are the ultimate sales pitch! Show your seniors how to market themselves in the first of six college and career readiness lesson plans. Pupils discover the do's and don'ts of writing personal statements through research,...

Practice makes progress. Working in pairs, presenters rehearse and refine their presentation skills before the big day when they pitch their film choices. Rehearsing also allows for refining prompt cards based on peer feedback and...

Get the word out about friendship, support, and a safe school community with a media literacy lesson about bullying. Young journalists investigate instances of bullying and take descriptive pictures as they compile a magazine to fight...

Are you a peace-keeper or a problem-solver? Explore conflict management styles through a lesson, fourth in a 15-part series, that combines individual assessment and collaborative work. Groups learn the basic tendencies of each style,...

The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...

Let's work together! Scholars engage in the peer editing protocol, giving and receiving feedback on their draft opinion speeches. They then use classmates' feedback to begin working on their revisions. 

Here is a unique and innovative game which will help your charges learn the important skill of proofreading and editing their own writing. The class is divided up into groups, and each group uses actual samples of writing from students...

Following a brief video, two teams play against each other to read clues from a card and guess which occupation it describes. The team that guesses the most correctly wins. A quick-write poses several questions about one's dream job.

Like Oskar, the curious boy in Jonathan Safran Foer’s story, class members journey through other “stories that the mouth can’t tell” to find another sentence that uses a word found in novel. Individuals create their own vocabulary list,...

Reflection is the best teacher. Using the resource, scholars complete the final part of their end of unit assessment, the fourth section of their storyboard about an invention. Next, they track their progress using a self-reflection...

Teach your learners about support, respect, and listening skills with an activity about empathy. Class members set goals for themselves regarding their peer relationships, and monitor their own progress over a period of time.

From baseball and tennis to capture the flag and four-square, here is a great document that will help you design your next unit on a sport-related activity. 

Here is lesson 5 from a 7 lesson unit on using blogging to create a community of writers. The aim of this lesson is to get students writing about what Archaeologists do and how they use material data to study the past. They compose a...

Academic goals can lead high schoolers toward bright futures. Get your class to think about where they want to be in 20 years and what they'll need to do to get there with this lesson plan. Learners fill out a brief questionnaire about...

Use these project guidelines as a start to designing your own class PowerPoint project and to consider what elements you would like to assign and assess in your class. While the resource begins with instructions for researching World War...