But for a fluke, 1862 could have gone differently during the Civil War. When Union troops found Robert E. Lee's battle plans for critical engagements in Maryland wrapped around cigars and tossed aside, history changed forever. Class...

Fifth graders investigate the qualities of a good reader by participating in a role play with the provided scripts. They focus on the five main strategies of good readers -- predicting, clarifying, questioning, summarizing, and...

Everyone can be an expert! After finishing Wendelin Van Draanen's book Flipped, divide your class into small groups. Then, assign each group a topic to become experts on. The resource suggests topics such as characters, themes, setting,...

How can you tell if someone is happy? The lesson works with elementary and middle school scholars to activate their schema and pay attention to details to make inferences in their daily lives, poetry, and other literature. Cleverly...

Students use a crosscheck strategy to improve their oral reading rate and fluency. They are timed reading "Bud the Sub" orally three times, and work to improve their time and expression each time through. Students encourage each other...

After reading chapter six of Ordinary People with your class, conduct this activity with your class. Turn the lights down, put on your softest voice, and have them try to imagine that they lost a close friend. Then, encourage them to...

Students practice one-minute oral readings to increase their speed and fluency. They review several reading strategies, and then they read orally with a partner. The partner times their reading with a stopwatch and tracks their time on...

Figurative language is the focus in the book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia. After reading Peggy Parish's book, class members dramatize idioms from the text, using dramatic strategies such as characterization, exaggeration, and...

HIgh schoolers respond to a persuasive article on using animal research. In this english lesson, writers listen to a conversation, and discuss the point of arguments. They write a critique on a certain film and share it with their...

Use Shel Silverstein's poem "Batty" to introduce poetry to young readers. This lesson is not formatted well, but the plan does suggest learners memorize a poem, recite the poem individually, and then recite the poem as a class. Poetry...

Perfect for establishing classroom protocols, this activity gets even the youngest learners thinking about rules and their consequences. The lesson begins with a discussion and a reading of the poem Humpty Dumpty that gets...

Students read and respond using appropriate reading strategies.

Learners read books with younger children, incorporating context clues and vocabulary aids as reading strategies to help the younger children learn to read. They discuss the concept of community capital and how this activity relates.

Students participate in several activities using a reading partner. They plan and organize reading meetings with their partner, and then review story elements by retelling the stories orally. The partners question each other and make...

A delicate topic is the focus of this lesson. Discuss what people can do to reduce the risk of sexual assault, as well as what a person should do if he or she is sexually assaulted. This is not any easy topic to discuss in a classroom,...

Continuing from a previous lesson on how to read and analyze proposed legislation on election ballots, your class members will now practice writing up their own proposals for a new school rule or local ordinance that will be...

Young scholars improve their reading fluency through the use of various strategies. After reviewing decoding and rereading strategies, students complete a timed assessment of their words read per minute. Their words per minute are...

Students explore reading comprehension by completing a graphic organizer. In this journalism technique lesson, students discuss important questions they can ask about stories they read to improve comprehension. Students identify keywords...

Students use the cross check strategy to increase reading comprehension in this lesson. They listen as the teacher reads "Where the Wild Things Are." The teacher purposely reads some words wrong so that the story does not make sense. ...

Sixth graders analyze the primary force that drives a character's actions in a character analysis lesson. In this character analysis lesson, 6th graders analyze how characters present their actions and participate in a group activity...

Fourth graders, after defining the task and searching for some creative strategies, role play being a Park Ranger who tries to save Big Bend from being removed from the National Park system in Texas. They support the keeping of Big Bend...

Fifth graders interview each other in the role of civil war personalities. In this Civil War lesson, 5th graders create a script and video of an interview with classmates who are portraying characters from the Civil War. Students are...

An effective way to demonstrate understanding is by synthesizing one's own work. Use a creative lesson designed for a unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun for small groups to show what they know about the play,...

Students explore mathematics by viewing cartoons. In this math functions lesson, students read several "Peanut" cartoons on their worksheets as they solve fraction problems and compare them to the comic strip. Students utilize addition,...