What fun! As part of a vocabulary exercise designed for Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida readers create word trees with the trunk representing the root word and the branches representing prefixes that can be added to the...

Endeavor. Qualm. Stolid. Fortitude. Filial. Bingo! As part of their study of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, class members engage in a vocabulary bingo game.

Readers read more closely when they think critically about a text. Discuss the words and concepts from Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea with a class activity that asks readers to not only record...

Do bears really sleep for an entire season? Six multiple choice questions and a drawing activity make up a worksheet that tests scholars' comprehension skills after reading about bears during winter. 

Explore the power of words with your class by analyzing the connotations of fictitious sports team names. Learners discuss team names and the mental images they convey. They create logos to illustrate the meanings and...

Scholars demonstrate their knowledge of root words aqua and aud, and develop vocabulary skills by completing of a chart, handout, and worksheet using creative thinking skills, a dictionary, and a thesaurus.   

"Bullying and Prejudice" and "Do You Cyber Bully," two lessons from a complete Bully Free program, serve as samples of the approach used in a unit designed to bring awareness to and to combat bullying. Each lesson asks class...

It takes courage to stand up to bullies. Two sample lessons from a complete Bully Free curriculum, "Courageous and Brave Bystanders" and "Assertiveness Skills for Bullied Students and Empowered Bystanders" provide participants with...

Middle schoolers develop strategies for what to do when they come upon words in a text that they don't know. After a class discussion, pupils are given a selection of text that contains some very difficult words. They are instructed to...

Learn from experience. As part of their study of Unbroken, scholars use a turn-and-talk strategy to discuss Louie's experiences and the presence of God while he is lost at sea. They then read quotes from the text and infer what the words...

Go back to where it all began! Investigate how axiomatic systems and Euclidean geometry are based on undefined terms, common notions, postulates, and propositions by examining passages from Euclid's Elements. (Social studies teachers...

Scholars learn about the Hero's Journey as they read Ray Bradbury's "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." They analyze the story's structure and narrative techniques. Finally, they write summaries of the text's central idea and use their...

Two lessons, "What Does Cyber Bullying Look Like?" and "Factors Influencing My Reporting the Bullying of Others," serve as examples of the 12 included in a Bully Free curriculum. Each plan includes discussion questions, an activity,...

Having a hard time defining bullying with your seventh graders? Discuss the different types of behavior one would see in a bullying situation with a series of lessons, worksheets, and group activities.

Middle schoolers are likely very familiar with the concept of bullying and cliques. Discuss their experiences and brainstorm ways to handle peer conflict and feelings of exclusion with a poem that focuses on bullying, and a second lesson...

Guess what is in the bag! Use this lesson at the beginning of the year to discuss appropriate items for 4th grade students to have in school. Each group develops a list of appropriate items as well as inappropriate items, and discusses...

Students find words that begin with the letters in their own names, using a variety of sources including word banks and online dictionaries. They create an acrostic poem. Pupils revise poems as needed, for meaning and conventions. ...

Students identify between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors at work. In this work behaviors lesson plan, students use a dictionary to define the related terms and visit various links to complete activities that define work place...

Here is a lesson plan that takes an interesting approach to analyzing data using box and whisker plots.  By using an applet that dynamically generates Venn diagrams, the class forms a strategy/algorithm for guessing the rule that...

Your class continues to explore the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition to learning about the background of this text, learners work on the skill of identifying and understanding key academic vocabulary....

Readers of Voltaire’s satire create a word square for vocabulary drawn from Candide. The first box contains the word, the second a picture or illustration of the word. The definition is written in the third box, and learners write a...

Locating and synthesizing information is an essential part of the research process but can be overwhelming for many young writers. Eliminate some of the stress and confusion, this resource suggests, by separating these steps. To focus...

Use psychodynamic theory as a part of analyzing a career cluster.The class defines vocabulary words, brainstorms a list of career traits, and completes an online career analysis inventory. They analyze 5 concepts of psychodynamic...

Two sample lessons from a curriculum unit on bullying provide high school seniors with an opportunity to assess their online and cell phone behavior and to consider how they can offer support to bullied students. Each plan includes an...