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Persona in Autobiography
A talkative old man? A naïve believer in Human Perfectibility? A Sage? Who is this guy, anyway? The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin launches a study of the way Franklin uses structure, style, and purpose, as well as different...
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Irish Eyes: Taking a Look at Local Landscape
Direct your class’s attention to the elements that make their community unique. After examining sample travel brochures, groups select something from their community to use as the subject, and then research, create, and publish a...
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Make a “Deliberations” Site
Many hot button issues require deliberations, even in your classroom! Learners work in teams or as individuals to decide on a deliberation question to make into a Google site. They research the topics in depth, discuss both sides of the...
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Rediscovering Forgotten Women Writers
Women's voices are becoming more prominent in the world of literature, but for centuries, this wasn't the case. Young historians research a woman whose writings are considered to be lost, out of print, or forgotten. They develop an oral...
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Roman Gladiators
Students review basic Latin terms pertaining to Roman gladitorial games, print out pictures of gladiators from Internet, share photos with classmates, choose gladiator to research, and prepare in depth visual and oral presentation about...
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Speak Vocabulary Strategy
A scarlet letter “V” stands for a desktop teaching vocabulary activity designed for Speak. Prior to reading Laurie Hales Anderson’s young adult novel, individuals sign up for a word, design a handout that illustrates the word, includes...
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Episodic Writing Using Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff
Help your middle-schoolers expand their writing skills with this lesson on episodic writing, which focuses on story details, idea development, and organization. After reading "The Eighth Picture: End of Summer" from Patricia Reilly...
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Slavery in Colonial America
Students examine the experience of the middle passage of slaves. They review slave songs and discuss their common themes. They develop a monologue in which they integrate a fragment of an actual slave song into a poem they have written.
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Escolas de Carnaval
Learners create a carnival display displaying the different themes they have studied. In this carnival lesson plan, students display the work they have studied through the samba schools in Brazil. Learners also incorporate music in their...
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Take a Leap!
Eighth graders discuss the flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. They study artwork of various sculptors showing the concept of flight. They write a paragraph and design a papier-mache' sculpture that shows movement.
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Story Writng: To Kill a Mockingbird: B1
Students are given the story To Kill a Mockingbird and a rubric before starting their writing project. They are aware of the guidelines that the teacher is using in order for students to obtain their passing grade.
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Artful Installations: 3D Constructions
Students create a larger than life recreation of a famous painting after becoming familiar with a famous artist's work through reading and exploration. They view and discuss slides from a variety of major art museums. They analyze and...
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Cinderella Stories
Students watch the original 1957 television production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's CINDERELLA starring Julie Andrews. They write their "own" version of the beloved fairy tale. However, theirs have a twist.
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Delicious Words
Fifth graders work together to make simple menus more interesting by adding descriptive words. This plan works well with the Six Traits of Writing as it covers the trait of word choice. This is a really fun way for students to practice...
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Would You Believe Your Eyes?
Students study the parts and functions of the human eye. They create dodecagons which are twelve-sided figures with twelve equal angles and share these with the class so that each student can begin to see how many different illusions can...
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Poetry-The Essence of Life
Students analyze and appreciate various types of poetry. In this poetry unit, students read classic and contemporary works to discover ways in which poetry expresses strong feelings. Students identify key vocabulary used to analyze...
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Act It Out!
An effective way to demonstrate understanding is by synthesizing one's own work. Use a creative lesson plan designed for a unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun for small groups to show what they know about the play, its...
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Kicking It Around
Students analyze the recent boom in women's sports, focusing on the Women's World Cup Soccer tournament to examine various people's views about women athletes. They write a newspaper article summarizing what they learned in their...
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PSAs: The Way We See It - Uncommercials
Learners work in groups to identify a topic or issue that they feel passionate about and produce a short PSA for the topic. In this PSA lesson, students select an issue or social problem to research. Learners create a video or a public...
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For the Well-being of Our Citizens Lesson 2: Poverty And Human Rights
Students investigate the definitions of poverty and impoverishment. They design a poster that show the Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that are violated by poverty. They write an article for the school newspaper...
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Nonpoint Source Pollution in Long Island Sound
Learners examine and identify the types of nonpoint pollution on Long Island Sound. In groups, they walk the shoreline, collect trash and identify its source. Using that information, they create a variety of graphs of the different...
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A Presidential Portrait: Andrew Jackson
Eighth graders examine the role of intended meaning in Ralph Earl's portrait of Andrew Jackson. They, in groups, research periods in Jackson's life and use gathered information to create their own portraits of Jackson.
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Field of Dreams
Students study several of Marc Chagall's paintings with an emphasis on his use of symbolic color and of space. They explore learn basic techniques for using Scholar colored pencils, and create an artwork using a baseball theme.
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You Are There: Television News Reports on Apartheid
Learners, in groups, research apartheid and its effects on South Africa. They present their information to the class.