Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...

Poems For Two Voices are a great resource in any language arts classroom, whether you are studying poetry or not. Focusing on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this lesson prompts young authors to write a Poem For Two...

Dr. Seuss and Walter Dean Myers team up to cover the topic of prejudice. Using The Sneeches (about the culture clash between star-bellied and bare-bellied Sneetches) and The Glory Fields (about a boy coming to America on a slave ship),...

Reclaim perspectives often left out of the narrative about the suffrage movement with an activity that lifts up the voices of African American women. Using primary sources and biographical details of Fannie Barrier Williams' life, young...

Whether it's dark, delightful, or somber, set the mood with William Golding's Lord of the Flies. High-schoolers practice descriptive writing by creating the appropriate mood for an original scene, starring one of the book's main...

Learners identify the qualities that contribute to effective verbal and non-verbal communication. They use those qualities as criteria by which to judge an in-class political debate on education.

Can your pupils change the world? Explore this question with Ben Harper's song "With My Own Two Hands" and John Mayer's "Waiting for the World to Change." After listening to the songs, they discuss the tools at their disposal for...

Put your class in the shoes of someone - or something - else with this lesson, which encourages writers to keep a diary from the perspective of a living creature or an abstraction. Use Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm and the Six Trait...

Are you looking for a way to bring writing into your history lesson - or history into your writing lesson? This cross-curricular activity is helpful and fun, no matter what class you're teaching! Using "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" by the...

Young scholars understand the water cycle through a role playing activity. In this water cycle lesson, students become familiar with the water cycle through a play about the water cycle. Young scholars illustrate their parts and create a...

Students read a chapter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and define new words for their dictionaries. In this vocabulary lesson students choose two or three assignment from a list of projects and complete it using...

A revolutionary work of literature requires a revolutionary assessment project. A series of activities on Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings includes discussion questions, a plot synopsis, and a selection of both short...

You have to collect lots of materials (boxes, bags, toilet paper rolls, etc.) for this lesson to work successfully. After modeling how to create an imaginary creature out of the collection of recycled materials, let your class search...

Students read and write poems for two voices about the Civil Rights Movement.

Explore narrative writing by participating in a role-playing activity. In this perspective activity, learners define first and third person in writing and discuss how it changes the mood of the reader. The first activity has pupils write...

Students analyze Macbeth through the lens of a pop song. In this Macbeth lesson, students read Act I, Scene 7 of Macbeth and determine Lady Macbeth's viewpoint. Students read the lyrics to Alanis Morrissette's song 'Wake Up' and work in...

Explore literature through the completion of reading comprehension worksheets in class. After reading the classic book, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, middle schoolers review each chapter by completing study questions and story webs....

The characters in The Grapes of Wrath come to life through an activity that asks groups to craft a dramatic monologue for a character in John Steinbeck's National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning novel.  Writers are...

Students explore Stephen Sondheim's contributions to musical theatre in the context of the dramatic cultural shift that occurred in American life in the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

Third graders describe, represent and compare fractions using pieces of a chocolate bar.  For this fractions lesson, 3rd graders demonstrate how to read and write fractions correctly. Students then integrate technology by using...

Want to teach your pupils about debate, effective speech techniques, propaganda, and the women's movement? The first in a sequential series of three, scholars analyze real propaganda images from the the historic women's movement, view a...

Students explore the 5 senses. In this technology skills instructional activity, students participate in digital storytelling workstations that feature each of the 5 senses. Students create digital cameras and digital voice recorders to...

Students improve their reading and speaking skills. They experiment with language, tone of voice, body language as they write a play. They write a script to a play. They act out roles of the play.

High schoolers collaborate to create a children's book. In this visual arts lesson, student study the components and procedures that go into making a children's book including the shape, size. layout, biographical information about the...