How do statistics help people understand the universal refugee experience? Using the resource, scholars engage in an activity called a Chalk Talk, working in teams to analyze statistics from informational texts about refugees. Also, they...

Looking for a lesson plan about differing sentence types? Use this lesson plan on compound and complex sentences in your grammar unit. After composing simple, compound, complex and compound-complex sentences individually and as part of a...

Help your kids explore gender bias. Learners design and conduct a survey examining role responsibilities within families. They determine the percentage of responsibilities for males vs. females and graph the results. Then they analyze...

Scholars read excerpts from the story, Heidi, in a three-part assessment that focuses on comparing and contrasting characters. Each part contains three tasks that challenge learners to discuss, answer comprehension...

A three-part assessment challenges scholars to read informational texts in order to complete three tasks. Following a brief reading, class members take part in grand conversations, complete charts, and work in small groups to research...

What's the most popular music style in Brazil? What about Cuba? Or the Dominican Republic? An immersive project teaches young learners about the salsa, the samba, and the merengue with research assignments and dance performances.

As an assessment of their skill in crafting a compare and contrast essay, class members read and compare the portrayals of nature in excerpts from naturalist John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra and from poet Emily Dickinson's...

Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about...

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...

Turn your students into flocks of migratory birds for this fun lesson on animal migration. Prior to the activity, the teacher creates four different migration routes in the classroom or any available open space, labeling nesting...

Students explore the human body by participating in physical activities. In this physical education activity, students demonstrate their physical prowess and motor skills by performing tasks such as climbing and rope tying. Students...

Students view a piece of impressionist art, listen to a piece of jazz music and then write a piece about the picture in the style of beat poets. They compare their writing and look for differences in their perceptions.

Finding and/or designing a menu of equally weighted synthesizing projects to end a unit can be a challenge. Simplify the task with this menu of individual and group projects meant to accompany a study of The Crucible. Presentations,...

Take young scientists on an exploration of the cosmos with this cross-curricular writing exercise. Tasked with producing an expository composition describing a planet of their choosing, students perform research and...

Students study the life of Ellis Wilson. They examine the use of simple shapes when drawing human figures. They examine how to incorporate pattern into a background setting.

William Shakespeare penned some of the richest and most fascinating works of literature—or did he? Middle schoolers read three brief informative passages and conduct additional research to evaluate the claim that Shakespeare did not...

Learners work collaboratively to take and download digital images, use iMovie software, and create an iMovie to show at a Back To School Night event. They discuss how to organize the information into a clear and cohesive movie. Then,...

Fifth graders research and write a pen pal letter about the geography of a Canadian town. Students create a script for a phone call with their pen pal and perform it with a friend for the class.

Looking for a way to bring prewriting into your informative writing unit? Use this instructional activity to reinforce writing skills in your eighth grade language arts class. Young writers use a web graphic organizer as a prewriting...

Here is a lesson designed to be an ongoing task for the entire year. Each day of the week, learners must perform research to answer a simple historical question. This particular lesson covers the month of April, but the template...

Pupils receive an index card, and they write down jobs and hobbies that interest them. Then, they get together in groups and are assigned the task of researching the jobs and hobbies that are of the most interest to the entire group....

Fifth graders discuss interjections reviewing them to be words or phrases that express excitement or strong emotion. In this language arts activity, 5th graders understand that commas or exclamation marks are used to separate...

Young scholars create 2-3 poems, a children's story, or a two or three dimensional piece of art.  In this Romantic Period lesson, students discuss the historical background of the Romantic Period and relevant literary...

Seventh graders explore persuasive writing using the city life and the country life as focus topics. In this persuasion lesson, 7th graders read "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" in an attempt to determine the pros and cons of both...