The perfect resource for a beginning journalism teacher or someone designing a journalism unit, this activity prompts students to write a newspaper article. It covers all aspects of the writing process, such as a guided warm-up...

Challenge your pupils with this innovative how-to activity. Instead of simply having learners write an essay describing how to do a particular activity, this activity has them create an iMovie describing a process.

A terrific instructional activity on homophones awaits your youngsters. First, pupils access a website that contains lists of homophones. Then, it's time to get creative! Everyone gets a piece of poster board and they create a homophone...

In order to make evidence-based claims, one must be able to draw explicit information from text. From here, learners take that information, analyze the text to develop a deeper understanding, and connect with the information in order to...

Whether working with pupils in their primary language or language learners, the exercises included in this resource will encourage your pupils to build more complex sentences. Using color-coded cards of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and...

An excellent grammar reference page from Jolly Phonics provides definitions and actions to remember several fundamental parts of speech. The methods are interesting for learners who have a hard time remembering the differences between...

Use the Schoolhouse Rock episode, "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla," to introduce a study of pronouns. Learners consider antecedents, cases (nominative, objective and possessive), as well as types of pronouns, and then craft sentences using...

The positional words up and down are the focus of a language and visual arts instructional activity. Learners get a paper plate and eight strips of construction paper. They create a spider out of their paper plate, and cut out a circle...

The identification of various parts of the human body is the focus of this biology lesson. Young scientists sing the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," and trace the human body onto butcher paper. Additionally, they label the parts...

The New York Times' Learning Network provides great lessons! This one uses articles from the paper to help readers understand homonyms like mail (verb and noun). It also includes an exercise in reading informational text. Links to the...

I or me? Are your middle school grammarians struggling with pronoun case? Try this trick. Instruct your learners to look right before or right after the pronoun choice for the words and, or, nor. Have them cover the conjunction and the...

With the focus on 21st century skills it is even more important that all teachers incorporate listening and speaking activities into their curriculum. Here's a packet of practical ideas appropriate for any classroom.

Passages from Unbroken and Farewell to Manzanar provide the context for a study of the historical themes of experiencing war, resilience during war, and understanding the lasting trauma of war. Appendices include extension...

Finding engaging ways to help your middle schoolers build their vocabulary is not easy to do. The lesson presented here offers a great way to motivate them to build vocabulary by making it into a game. Teams of pupils use a dictionary...

"The Gettysburg Address" is the basis of a series of activities that not only model for learners how to conduct a close reading of a text, but also how a close reading can help them comprehend a difficult text. The detailed, step-by-step...

Today, Cuba and America sometimes struggle with diplomatic relations, but did you know that America went to war against Spain to free Cuba? Learners examine many interesting facts related to the Spanish American War using an informative...

In this effective language arts lesson, students study homophones and practice using the correct words as they fill in the blanks to sentences. Sentence ideas are provided in the lesson, as is a very nice 35-page booklet of language...

Oú est la cuisine? Several activities are suggested here to develop and further vocabulary acquisition for your beginning French speakers. They draw pictures of different rooms in a house and place objects around the room. Then, using...

“C u l8r @ skool.” As part of a study of formal and informal language, class members examine excerpts from Lil’ Boosie lyrics, the Emancipation Proclamation, a speech by Martin Luther King. Links to the resources not provided; however,...

Even though this lesson is just a basic way to review verb usage, it takes a novel approach. First, pupils identify verbs that they use too often in their writing, and then they create a Wordle. Wordle is a website that provides graphic...

What is true courage? Your class can explore the answer with these three Houghton-Mifflin stories ("Hatchet," "Passage to Freedom," "Climb or Die," and "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle"), which feature courageous characters and...

"How can a few good words save a pig's life?" Posed with this question, your ELD students explore E.B. White's Charlotte's Web in a meaningful, valuable way. By analyzing specific word choice from the book, especially the excerpts...

Help, there's an emergency! Adult English language learners need to know how to express concern and call for help in an emergency. Provide them with this comprehensive list of vocabulary and lead them through the exercises given....

Everyone knows that a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea - but what happens when you have people, places, things, or ideas? Use this SMART board activity to guide your class through plural nouns. Several activities, including making...