Trinity University
Explain Yourself: An Expository Writing Unit for High School
Introduce expository writing with a unit that asks writers to craft an essay to explain a belief, value, or priority that is important to them. Mini-lessons within the unit focus on crafting thesis statements and conclusions, selecting...
University of North Carolina
Honors Theses
For those enrolled in a college honors program, four years of hard work culminate in one paper—an honors thesis. A handout outlines the steps to writing the paper, beginning with a sample timetable and time management instructions. Once...
California Department of Education
Safe at Work
From minimum wage to minimizing injuries, young workers need to know their rights! The sixth and final instructional activity in a series of college and career readiness activities gets eighth graders thinking about safety and labor laws.
Ohio Literacy Resource Center
Writing a Well-Structured Paragraph
Practice with paragraphs while thinking about careers! Learners examine and discuss two sample paragraphs, marking the different elements (topic sentences, body, concluding sentences), and try out writing their own paragraphs. Focusing...
Bermingham City Schools
Opinion Writing
It's no secret that children can be very opinionated, but rather than fight against this natural tendency, embrace it with this primary grade writing project. After a shared reading of a children's book about persuasion, young learners...
University of Wisconsin
BEAM: Background, Exhibit, Argument, Method
Thinking of assigning a research paper? Get writers off on the right foot with a activity that introduces the BEAM research model. Writers brainstorm the background of their topic, explicate the aspects of their topic, consider the...
Curated OER
Whale Song Acrostic
What do whales sing about? Invite your class to imagine the thoughts of whales before writing acrostic poems on the topic. The plan blends together a bit of life science with plenty of opportunities for creativity and writing.
Poetry4kids
How to Write a Cinquain Poem
A lesson challenges scholars to create a cinquain poem. Writers begin by choosing a topic and brainstorm details, then compose their original poem making sure to count syllables.
University of North Carolina
College Writing
No matter how difficult high school writing may seem, college writing presents challenges of its own. The fourth in a series of 24 handouts from The Writing Center at UNC breaks down the expectations for college writing. Scholars learn...
American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture
Shapes in Agriculture
It's time to get crafty with shapes! Your future farmers demonstrate their geometric ability by building a farm using triangles, circles, rectangles, and squares. But first, scholars take part in a brainstorm session inspired by their...
Berkshire Museum
Adopt a Schoolyard Tree
Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science lesson. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing sketches of it in...
Smarter Balanced
Food Waste and Food Access
Forty percent of food in the US goes uneaten while 14.5 percent of US households lack a secure supply of food. As part of the preparation for a performance task assessment, groups consider statistics such as these about food waste and...
Rainforest Alliance
Who Takes Care of the Maya Forest Corridor?
Who keeps animals safe? Who keeps us safe? Discover the helpers that make learning and growing possible through a medley of activities that focus on habitats—ours and those in the rainforest. Scholars are asked to identify one helper who...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
A World of Animals: Extra Support Lessons (Theme 10)
Provide extra support with this collection of animal-themed lessons. Early readers gain proficiency in high frequency words are and he, practice blending short vowel sounds, and substitute initial and final phonemes while creating...
EngageNY
Using Permutations and Combinations to Compute Probabilities
Now that we know about permutations and combinations, we can finally solve probability problems. The fourth installment of a 21-part module has future mathematicians analyzing word problems to determine whether permutations or...
Newseum
Reporting Part I: What Matters to Me
Young reporters have an opportunity to craft a news story about a topic that interests them. Class members brainstorm events and issues that affect them and possible sources of information. Individuals then select a topic, research it,...
Earth Day Network
Conserving Water Through Art!
Having fresh, clean drinking water is a privilege many people take for granted. Help raise awareness about the scarcity of water and the importance of conservation by discussing different ways water is used in everyday life. Brainstorm...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Smart Buildings and the Internet of Things
Is your building a smart building? Pupils learn what makes a building smart and about the internet of things. After viewing several videos on the topic, they conduct an activity collecting data from sensors and brainstorm ways to improve...
Newseum
Persuasion Portfolios
After class members brainstorm a list of current social and political issues, groups each select a different topic from the list to research. Teams create a portfolio of at least 10 examples of stories about their issue, stories that...
Newseum
News About My Community
After researching statistics about their community in local census reports, young journalists interview a resident about their interests and then analyze a local newspaper or homepage to see how similar the stories are to the residents'...
ReadWriteThink
Persuasive Essay: Environmental Issues
Young environmentalists learn how to craft a persuasive essay about an environmental issue they consider important. After studying the components of a persuasive essay and examining a student model, writers brainstorm possible topics and...
Smarter Balanced
The Internet
The Internet and how it has changed our lives is the focus of a series of activities that prepares learners for the performance task assessment on the influence of the Internet. Groups also brainstorm devices such as phone and cars that...
K5 Learning
Clothing
Reinforce the instruction of sequence words using a instructional activity that asks learners to read a poem, match words to their coordinating number, and use the words first, second, and third.
EngageNY
Increasing and Decreasing Functions 1
Model situations with graphs. In the fourth installment of a 16-part module, scholars learn to qualitatively analyze graphs of piecewise linear functions in context. They learn to sketch graphs for different situations.