Missouri Department of Elementary
Are You Balanced?
Balance scales create a strong visual of how an individual prioritizes one's self alongside their commitments to the community, school, and home. Scholars complete a graphic organizer then discuss their findings with their peers. A...
Incredible Art
Tints and Shades Hanging
Here's a mobile assignment that will brighten up your classroom. Each group is assigned one color from the color wheel, paints the pure color, three tints, and three shades of that color on precut forms the group designs, and hangs the...
University of North Carolina
Word Choice
Words matter, particularly in academic writing. Issues such as vague language, wordiness, and cliches make it difficult to get a point across. Part of a larger series to improve writing skills, the handout on word choice shows writers...
University of Minnesota
Writing for Success
You can be a success! Scholars learn skills required for successful writing with a step-by-step process. They begin with the basics of parts of speech, such as indefinite pronouns, and writing a simple sentence. Individuals then build...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 3, Unit 3, Lesson 5
Class members examine examples that model how to develop and maintain a formal style and an objective tone in informative/explanatory writing. They also engage in a peer review activity and revise their work based on the feedback.
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 4, Unit 1, Lesson 26
The focus of the day's instructional activity is methods for creating a formal style and objective tone in an argument essay. After examining models, pairs engage in peer review of their essay drafts and continue to revise while...
EngageNY
Grade 10 ELA Module 3: Unit 3, Lesson 11
It's time to show what you know. Scholars finalize their argumentative essays by making last-minute revisions to conventions, tone, and formal style. Learners review the checklist to ensure they have met all the task requirements. They...
EngageNY
Performance Task: Performing a Narrative
Calling all performers! Scholars present a modern-day theme of adversity by performing their narratives for the class. As individuals watch their peers, they take notes on each performance using an Audience Note Sheet.
Guam Community College
Joseph Had a Little Overcoat
Spruce up a class reading of the children's book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback with this fun series of activities. Starting with a list of reading comprehension questions and key vocabulary to address during a teacher read...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Picturing a Story: Photo Essay about a Community, Event or Issue
Picture this. Class members follow in the footsteps of W. Eugene Smith, Dorothea Lange, James Nachtwey, and Lewis Hine by creating their own photo essay about a local event or issue.
Dick Blick Art Materials
Peace Windows
Peace, love, tolerance, faith. Marc Chagall's Peace Window in the United Nations World Headquarters serves as a model for young artists as they create their own peace-themed transparent paintings. A great activity for both SPED and...
Curated OER
My Antonia: Directed Reading Thinking Activity
Walk your pupils through the beginning of My Antonia by Willa Cather with a read-aloud-style activity. The goal is to make predictions and back them up with textual evidence.
Oglebay Institute
Post-Impressionism: Van Gogh Drawings
Turn your young artists into little Vincent van Goghs with a lesson on brush stroke style and color blending. Pupils practice the painting technique by sketching various shapes before recreating a van Gogh piece or creating an original...
Curated OER
Figurative Language - Figuring it Out
Play this slide show and then find out how much your class has learned with the included quiz. After jotting down the definitions of each term, class members label 10 examples with one of five terms: simile, metaphor, personification,...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Diversity in World Literature Lesson 10: Author's Purpose Seminar
Why did Chinua Achebe write "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" in response to Conrad's novel? As part of a study of Things Fall Apart, class members conduct a socratic seminar focused on Achebe's purpose and...
Poetry4kids
How to Write a Free Verse Poem
Budding poets compose an original free verse poem. Encouraged to use personification and alliteration, scholars read over three tips and examples then try their hand at drafting a poem of their own style.
Curated OER
Reading and Responding: Lesson 9
Follow this lesson, which is written more like a script, to practice reading a poem with your class. Pupils read "The Road Not Taken" and respond to five multiple choice questions on a provided worksheet. The plan leads you through a...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Character in Place: Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” for the Common Core
How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty uses...
Dick Blick Art Materials
Matisse Prints du Soleil
The sun provides the link between this art and science activity. Kids use sunlight (or light from an artificial source) to produce heliographic prints on fabric or paper.
Dick Blick Art Materials
Fauvism is for the Birds!
Here's a art project that lets kids use bold colors to express their inner wild beasts, and maybe even attract a few wild birds. Using old picture frames, canvases, and screen mesh, young fauvists craft bird feeders and decorate their...
Ohio Literacy Resource Center
Arguing with Aristotle Ethos, Pathos, Logos
Introduce your classes to the Art of Rhetoric with a lesson that focuses on Aristotle's persuasive appeals and how they have been used, both ethically and unethically, to influence opinion.
La Jolla High School
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: In Search of Figurative Language
While this resource was originally made to be used in conjunction with John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, it could be used for any literary text. A reference sheet for readers, the resource includes terminology related to figurative...
Vancouver Island University
Ming Lo Moves the Mountain
A good story is a great way to support skills that are necessary for encouraging strong reading skills. Here is a class I do, You do, We do style lesson that stars the tale, Ming Lo Moves the Mountain. Included are two fun pre-reading...
New York City Department of Education
What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue: How Did Jazz Influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
How did jazz influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Class members read some of Ellison's non-fiction writings about blues and jazz, listen to records, watch videos, and engage in student-centered discussions. They then produce podcasts...