We're halfway there ... what a relief! Scholars read an excerpt from a primary source about the relief camps associated with the1906 San Francisco earthquake. Next, they complete a mid-unit assessment, answering short-answer and...

Learners use a Analyzing Mediums handout to detail the advantages and disadvantages of communicating with mediums such as artwork, photographs, and political cartoons in the Japanese-American Internment during World War II primary...

Check those sources carefully. Scholars learn to analyze and critique primary sources with the work they completed in the previous activity. Learners compare and contrast sources that agree and disagree about Japanese-American internment...

Scholars learn about primary sources with a Primary Sources: Japanese-American Internment during World War II packet. Pupils work with a partner to read challenging sources in the packet while making notes in the margins. They then...

Walking in nature is the theme of a unit designed to support English language development lessons. Scholars look, write, speak, and move to explore topics such as camping, woodland animals, instruments,...

It is all in the details. Scholars read The Life of Miné Okubo and pay special attention to details that reveal Okubo's character. Completing their Understanding Miné: Character Traits graphic organizers and recalling the descriptions...

Text annotations help readers track essential ideas. Pupils continue reading and annotating an informational article about Sudanese tribes, connecting it with A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They also begin writing about their...

Imagine being forced against your will behind barbed wire for doing nothing but being yourself. Scholars investigate the impact Japanese-American internment camps had during World War II. Through video and archival evidence, they create...

Never Forget. As part of a study of the Holocaust, class members watch a PowerPoint about Terezin, read selections from I Never Saw Another Butterfly, Children's Drawings, and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, then craft their...

Here's a colorful activity that can be modified for any age group. Kids create printing blocks and craft t-shirts and/or canvas sacks using the blocks and fabric paint. 

Add another layer to the class's understanding. Scholars deepen their knowledge of the primary sources in their Japanese-American Internment during World War II packet and determine how the sources relate to the theme of invisibility....

What's the difference between story reading and story telling? Participants in a summer enrichment program learn all about the difference as they listen to famous speeches, engage in dramatic readings, and craft their own short stories...

A repetition poem is the focus of a lesson that challenges scholars to compose an original piece. To add meaning to their poem, authors choose words to repeat at the start of most lines.  

Using a paragraph from Jack London's Call of the Wild, readers demonstrate their ability to identify the main idea and supporting ideas in a passage.

The poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the focus of a unit that asks readers to consider how an artist's life and changes in society influences his or her work. After careful study of Whitman's and Dickinson's perspectives on...

After responding to a series of prompts on an anticipation guide, readers of Unwind craft five predictions about what will happen in Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel.    

Prior to reading Unwind, Neal Shusterman's 2007 young adult science fiction novel, class members research the common definition of words drawn from the novel that will come to have a very different meaning to them as they are...

Help readers develop phonemic awareness, the conscious awareness of the sound structure of words, with an exercise that asks kids to identify and highlight the /a/ sound in a list of 39 words. They then read the words to an adult.  

Before you begin reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, read over this comprehensive handout that gives you a plethora of information regarding the story's summary, organizational structure, central...

After finishing The Red Badge of Courage, readers complete a grammar worksheet  to identify the chain of events in the plot, the enduring issues, and major themes of Stephen Crane's novel.

Imagine being stranded all alone on an island for 18 years. How would you survive? Class members are challenged to makes necessities out of natural materials that would likely be found on an island.

If you’re going to get a tattoo, make sure your artist writes it right because it’s hard to correct their inkings. That’s the big idea in this short lesson on commonly misspelled words like their/there/they’re and it’s/its.  Images...

Present information about simple sentences and compound sentences. Learners use this information to complete a quick exercise and as background for learning about sentence combining. 

Young botanists examine the different parts of tress and then draw parallels between the functions of these parts and the function of parts of the human body.