Pupils begin the writing process in preparation for an end-of-unit essay based on Katherine Paterson's Lyddie. To get started, they read and discuss a model essay and learn about the similarities and differences between argumentative and...

Are American young people prepared to become tomorrow's leaders in technological innovation, or does an obsession with being cool sidetrack essential skills? That is the question freshmen and sophomores must address in a performance...

Should the work of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences be funded by the government? Middle schoolers weigh in on the status of federal funding for programs that protect the environment with three text passages...

Challenge writers to compose an essay detailing their stance on, and the history of, voting. Three assignments, each broken down into three parts, requires fifth graders to take notes, read and complete charts, write paragraphs, compare...

Should the government rate music? Are teen juries a good idea? Is space exploration worth the money? Your learners will think critically to tackle these interesting questions, and practice their ability to form persuasive arguments...

The post-Revolutionary Period of 1781-1787, also known as the Critical Period, is the focus of a series of lessons that prompt class members to examine primary source documents that reveal the instability of the period of the...

What is the biggest issue facing young people today? Class members consider the question—along with other provocative pieces from the New York Times—and then try to write their own arguments and back them up with evidence. Once complete,...

In "How We Researched and Wrote this Book," the final essay in Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, authors Aronson and Budhos discuss their research methods and purpose in writing the text....

The only way that a heinous act of genocide can succeed is if citizens of surrounding groups and countries turn their backs on those suffering. A thorough language arts module addresses shared central ideas with three separate units,...

Scholars investigate the Holocaust through the eyes of an Auschwitz survivor. They analyze and research a firsthand account of events inside the gas chambers moments before hundreds died. Using Holocaust Reading Passages and...

The Internet is known as the information superhighway, but sometimes it's hard to know when to hit the brakes on unreliable sources. Using a well-rounded lesson plan, pupils read and summarize articles about the gender pay gap and...

Class members read "Satyagraha," the concluding section of Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, and analyze how the authors support their claim that terrible...

Put it all into words. Scholars work toward writing an argumentative essay. They begin by examining and marking strong words in Are We Medieval? A Literary Argument Essay Prompt. Learners then use Qualities of a Strong Literary Argument...

Who bears the most responsibility for ensuring that goods are ethically produced? Using evidence drawn from Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, the unit's central text, and from the...

As a mid-unit assessment, writers use evidence from the supplemental reading articles "Globalization," "Our Addiction to Fast Fashion Kills," and "Bangladesh Factory Collapse: Who Really Pays for Our Cheap Clothes?" to draft an argument...

Susan B. Anthony's speech "Is It a Crime for Women to Vote?" takes center stage in a lesson that asks class members to consider how they might respond to what they consider an unjust law. Groups work through the speech paragraph by...

Behind every successful debate is a list of clearly stated criteria. Let your debaters know exactly how their performance will be evaluated with this packet that details the content, preparation, structure, and grading policy that will...

The 2016 election is over, and now it's time to dig in to some data! An activity revolves around data gathered from the First Vote Project in North Carolina wherein thousands of students voted. After diving in to the data using...

Are you enjoying the use of all five senses? Imagine that you have to lose one of them; you can choose which one, but it's gone forever. Work through a lesson based on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis that asks class...