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Is That Movie OK?
Discuss movies and movie enjoyment with your middle school language arts class. They interpret movie review information, determine appropriate movies, and then write film reviews to share with the class. Focus on using context clues to...
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Can You Get the Signal?
What is a signal word? Recognizing these words is an important step in both reading and writing formal text. Review a list of signal words (provided and organized into specific categories), and then have your class play a game to...
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Car For Sale!
Car For sale! In this GED prep lesson plan, writers develop a classified advertisement to sell a car. After a discussion of precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language, sellers draft their ad for review, revision and...
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Similes, Metaphors, and Symbols
Here is an outline of a lesson in which learners examine the use of similes, metaphors, and symbols in poetry. They define similes, metaphors, and symbols, complete a handout, and create a poem using types of figurative language.
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Grammar-Active and Passive Voice
Use this lesson to reinforce the effect of passive and active voice in writing. First, middle schoolers write several sentences, and then use the attached worksheet to identify whether the sentences are written in active or passive voice.
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A City Council Meeting
Here is an interesting plan for introducing your pupils to the workings of the local city council. The teacher must go videotape a city council meeting in it's entirety. Learners watch the tape, and discuss what they observed from the...
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Living to Eat, Eating to Live
Young scholars develop a five paragraph essay.They write their essays, review rules related to subject/verb agreement and the use of transition words or devices. They find examples of transition words or devices in newspaper or...
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Fact Or Fiction
Students demonstrate their ability to distinguish between fact and fiction. Students identify the features of weather-related adages and proverbs. After reviewing several weather adages, students explain whether they are based in fact.
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Child Safety
Explore reading comprehension and child safety in this young adult literacy lesson. High schoolers practice using context clues to figure out word meanings after observing a teacher model this process. They read an article about child...
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Details, Details, Details
Students review paragraph development, use of adjectives and grammar requirements. They incorporate various details in a written paragraph describing a visual image used as a writing prompt.
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Why Predict?
Twelfth graders examine the process of predicting. They observe a fine art transparency, discuss their predictions about the artwork, identify the types of predictions made during a weather broadcast, and evaluate headlines from...
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What's The Idea
Pupils discuss the importance of identifying the main idea in reading selections. After reading newspaper articles related to nutrition, students identify the main idea of the selection and three supporting details. A reading log...
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Beginning With Writing
Pupils brainstorm what it means to "convey ideas in writing" They review the standard graphic clarify vocabulary and Discuss the importance of having a standard definition for writing and making sure everyone is in agreement of that...
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Grammar: Subject-Verb Agreement
Young scholars analyze English by completing a handout regarding grammar rules. In this verb lesson, students identify what a verb does, where to use it in a sentence and what a verb fragment is. Young scholars complete a worksheet based...
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Dogs vs. Cats: Pet Ownership Essay
Young scholars analyze patterns of organization used in writing to determine how and when comparisons and contrasts can be effectively utilized to identify similarities and differences or pros and cons.
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Picture This
Students create a descriptive paragraph about their past or their heritage and provide a picture to go along with it. In this past and heritage lesson plan, students share their paragraph with the class.
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Reading Puzzle
Twelfth graders examine the elements of literature. They each read a chapter of a novel, sequentially list the main ideas, present a summary of the chapter to the class, sequence the events, and review the novel by summarizing the timeline.
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Picture This
Students examine their life experiences as well as their classmates when they share their heritage or an important event from their past through writing as an extension of an Orientation.
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The Circle of Learning
Students review Newton's Third Law of Motion and participate in an experiment. After the experiment, they use their notes to write a scientific summary of what happened during the project. They present their project to the class and...
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Combining and Rewriting Sentences
Learners practice combining sentences using the conjunction handout provided. They search magazines and newspapers to identify combined sentences that use conjunctions. Finally, these are rewritten again as two separate sentences.
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Rubric Rating
Students develop a rubric or scoring guide to assess newpaper articles. They rate the story and write the reasons for the rating. An Essay Scoring Guide is attached for reference.
Minnesota Literacy Council
Introduction to Historical Thinking
Christopher Columbus: hero or villain? Prepare class members for the debate with activities that asks them to think critically about how history is reported.
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The Civil War - Reading on the Internet
Students fill out a KWL worksheet and answer short answer questions about the Civil War. In this Civil War lesson plans, students find the answers to their questions by researching the Internet.