Unfortunately, fake news, fuzzy facts, and bogus news stories are not new phenomena. Class members use a "Fake News Through History" worksheet to analyze historical examples of false, invented, made-up news. Researchers share their...

Young sociologists analyze the needs of white and black students. They discuss how Central and Dunbar High Schools are alike and different before 1957. They write an essay comparing the two schools.

Drama is ever-present in our daily lives and eloquently depicted on stage. Middle schoolers practice writing scenes based on different prompts and frameworks, and then perform those creative scenes for their classmates. The...

We live in a time of fake news, alternative realities, and media bias. What could be more timely than an activity that asks class members to research how different sources report the same topic in the news?

A Venn diagram is a great tool. Middle schoolers research specific authors from different time periods, cultures, and genres. In groups, they create a Venn Diagram in order to compare and contrast two pieces of literature by the same...

Elementary schoolers engage in a literature study. They make comparisons of two different versions of a story using a graphic organizer. Using the text and pictures elementary schoolers investigate three elements from the story. Then,...

Everyone can be an MVP! Young learners create their own baseball cards about themselves in this autobiographical lesson. They use information about their lives to create a baseball trading card. They make flash cards using baseball...

Familiarize your class with commonly used editing marks. They apply the use of editing marks to a letter and examine different types of literary tools before making a note card resource for the tools. They add their own examples for each...

Wes Magee's poem "The Chimney Boy's Story" about chimney sweeps/climbing boys is used as an introduction to a lesson that asks groups to research child labor in Victorian Britain. 

Students explore homes as shelters while they built writing and technology skills. In this homes of yesterday and today lesson, students produce books using digital photography. Students develop vocabulary while researching how homes are...

Young scholars discover how schools around the world are the same and different. In this international school lesson, students learn about different types of schools from all around the world and the items and activities within these...

Explore the world of fairy tales using this activity focusing on higher- order thinking skills. Learners compare and contrast an Asian Cinderella story to other versions. It is a great way to review the characteristics of the genre and...

Young scholars read excerpts from Peter Hessler's River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze and discuss his difficulties in learning the language, cultural clashes and how cultural perceptions shape our understanding of the world.

Students analyze how personal diaries and memoirs record actual events. They compare and contrast diaries and memoirs from the Holocaust. They engage in journal or diary writing as a way to explore one's own feelings and self.

Students explore water usage around the world.  In this "water" social studies lesson, students brainstorm ways in which water is used.  Students visit the Water in Africa website to view pictures of water usage in...

Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...

Just how free is the press? After examining the advertising and propaganda techniques used by advertisers, class members consider the influence advertisers may exert over newspaper content. 

Bully, bullied, or bystander? Paul Langan's The Bully is the anchor text in a unit that examines bullying and violence. After a close reading of the text, readers imagine themselves as the characters and consider how they would react in...

A superb interdisciplinary approach highlights this lesson which incorporates space science knowledge and narrative skills. After reading The Magic School Bus, two excellent poems, and watching a video, all about our solar system, young...

Identify and analyze the use of figurative language used in select pieces of writing. These pieces of literature will represent at least two pieces by one writer and at least two pieces by different writers. This lesson would be a great...

Twelfth graders compare and contrast information from stories.  In this similarities and differences lesson, 12th graders read about Milton Hershey and Forrest S. Mars to learn about the lives of the two men.  Students complete...

One picture but a thousand stories. As a part of a case study of how the death of Michael Brown was reported by professional news sources and on social media class members examine the reactions of various groups to a photograph taken by...

The Paradise Papers, a year-long research project from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) exposed how political leaders, business people, and wealthy individuals used offshore entities to avoid taxes and hide...

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