Big news isn't necessarily newsworthy everywhere! How do journalists decide what to cover with so much happening around them? A instructional activity on media literacy examines the factors that affect the media's choice of stories to...

Reporting the news is easy, right? Think again! Show young scholars the difficult choices journalists make every day through a lesson that includes reading, writing, and discussion elements. Individuals compare the language and sources...

There are an average of three human fatalities by bears in North America every year, which is low when you compare it to the 26 killed by dogs and the 90 killed by lightning annually. The lesson encourages researching human-bear...

Take two. After a mini lesson covering sentence structure and transition words, scholars revise their End of Unit 3 Assessment based on feedback. Writers self-score their assessments against row three in the Newspaper Article Rubric.

New Horizons set forth on a mission to Pluto in 2006. Ten years later, the spacecraft is still on its way. Here, enthusiastic scholars predict what they will be like—likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc.—when New Horizons arrives at its...

The ultimate legacy of Emmett Till's violent death is its role in the non-violent roots of the Civil Rights Movement. A lesson compares contemporaneous articles with the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "The Death of Emmett Till" and prompts...

Once the class learns about the hero's journey, they'll find it in every story and movie they see! Take characters from their humble beginnings to their atonement and apotheosis with a set of lessons about the hero's journey...

Here is a set of advertising lessons, explore language, techniques, representation, and target audiences. Discuss the impact ads have on our daily lives. What do we see and how do they make us feel? Observe ads from around the...

Celebrate the uniqueness of your students with this character building lesson series. In order to learn about and appreciate diversity and individuality, children create All About Me books by cutting out and drawing pictures...

After analyzing newspaper articles portraying different perspectives of the explosion of the Battleship USS Maine, your young historians will take a stand on which position is the most believable in both discussion and writing.

If you are reading works by Walter Dean Myers in your class, this resource might be worth a look. Included here are activities and discussion questions for Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary, Somewhere in the Darkness, Scorpions, Fallen...

Encourage learners to think deeply about the information they read or hear. Through a series of life skills worksheets, your pupils will consider the need for objectivity, identifying missing information, and problem solving.

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

Statistics can be manipulated to say what you want them to say. Teach your classes to be wise consumers and sort through the bias in those reports. Young statisticians study different statistical reports and analyze them for...

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] When people talk about media literacy, they are talking about learning to understand what these messages really mean. This lesson will help you take a closer look at a few...