Learners view a slide show featuring famous athletes and educational institutions that have played a part in the history of basketball. They participate in a game in which a basketball is tossed from person to person as facts and...

Looking for a good social media lesson for your class? Then, this lesson is for you! They study various written reviews, then must choose an item to review of their choice. They can choose from: a book, restaurant, CD/musical...

Help your writers get started with these hooks! Twenty-five opening lines from the "Lives" column in the New York Times Magazine act as prompts for creative writing. Have your learners choose one prompt and write an original essay....

Explore narrative writing by participating in a role-playing activity. In this perspective lesson, 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 set up a pretend "apple stand." In this dramatic play lesson, students create an apple stand scene. Students pretend to pick and pay for apples.

Take writing prompts to another level in this activity, which allows pupils to create scenes of dialogue based on the 1903 silent film, The Great Train Robbery. Useful for a language arts/history cross-curricular activity, the lesson...

Learners read a story and retell it through role playing. They will read Big Pumpkin, identify the main ideas and important characters, retell the story through dramatic play, and identify their favorite character.

C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength provides the model for using dreams in narrative writing. After a discussion of the purpose of dreams in Lewis’s tale, class members craft a story in which their dreams play an essential role.

Shadow puppetry has an ancient past, it is also a great way to build oral expression and reading fluency. Young thespians research folk tales, compare and contrast reality and fantasy, then create and perform a shadow puppet play based...

Start a writing lesson by examining a news video that explains writing clearly, concisely, and correctly. Learners consider the importance of writing news properly to avoid breaking the law, then write their own weekend news stories.

Ninth graders write a letter to someone who is deserving of thanks. Peer and self-editing takes place. After the writing process is completed and a copy is made for the portfolio, envelopes are distributed, addressed, sealed, and mailed.

What do a pair of stinky socks and a toy hamster have in common? The third lesson in an 11-part unit designed to accompany The Twits by Roald Dahl uses silly objects to teach about figurative language. Zany pranks and role play make...

Use your tablets to participate in a culture-sharing project with a class in a foreign country. Your class can communicate and share ideas with a class in another country, swapping information regarding language and culture. Together you...

Do monsters really exist? Find out what your class thinks with these discussion questions prior to reading Beowulf. Incorporate music and a video clip into the anticipatory set to engage your learners. Take a day to search online...

A lesson turns young historians into playwrights to understand and speak out against social injustice. Pupils work individually or in groups to write and perform monologues that deliver personal messages on social justice. Writers then...

Students explore the concept of retelling a story.  In this retelling lesson plan, students use Play-Doh to create models of the objects in Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Students use these models to to retell the...

An Online NewsHour article about scholarly ethics launches this study of plagiarism. Since historians are supposed to bring original ideas and perspectives to their publications, they must give credit to the ideas of others. After a...

"What a beautiful noise comin' up from the street; got a beautiful sound, it's got a beautiful beat..." Use Neil Diamond's "Beautiful Noise" to guide your class through a Six Trait writing activity, in which they write an original poem...

Here is an authentic assessment task for Shakespeare's Macbeth. Young literature scholars prepare, perform, and record a news broadcast about the major events in the play. For example, groups may choose to report on the death of Lady...

Learners explore West Virginia history with regard to Mountain and Appalachian Culture. They compare and contrast life now with life 100-150 years ago. They write and illustrate a short story about the life of children 100-150 years ago....

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...

The first of a three-part series on bullying, this plan has class members present skits about bullying, write and sign an anti-bullying pledge, and complete a service project. For the skit, learners use information from previous lessons...

Use Mattie Stepanek’s Heartsongs book of poetry to inspire young poets to write about their own lives, experiences, and feelings. After reading the introduction to Mattie’s book, in which he talks about himself and his reasons for...

Students write a topic sentence to a paragraph and explain that it introduces the main idea. After a whole-class demonstration, students write a complete paragraph with their topic sentence and supporting sentences. There are some...