Whether new to teaching Beowulf or an experience pro, you'll find much to like in a richly detailed unit plan that asks readers to consider how the epic represents the difficulty in defining good and evil but also reflects the changing...

A powerful photograph of the Freedom Riders of 1961 launches an examination of the de jure and de facto injustices that the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s addressed. Young historians first watch a video and read the Supreme...

Analyzing arguments is key to critical thinking. Colorful slides teach viewers how to recognize the structure of an argument, the claims, and the validity of the evidence used to support an argument. Then, provided scenarios permit...

Mean girls and bully packs are favorite topic for films and TV shows that focus on the destructive power of cliques. High school freshmen are asked to reflect on both the positive and negative aspects of cliques by reading a short...

As part of their study of the women's suffrage movement, groups analyze political cartoons and drawings. They create a caption for an image from the time, add an exhibit label that provides a context for their drawing, and post as part...

It's time for the feast! Young historians complete their study of the First Thanksgiving by completing an online activity, watching a slideshow, and examining a First Thanksgiving timeline. After answering text-dependent questions to...

Any classroom study of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved requires careful planning and scaffolding. A primary source set that includes a video, illustrations, photos of artifacts, and a broadside of the Fugitive...

Despite the passing of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, as well as the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the struggle to ensure fair voter registration and election procedures continues. Young historians...

True! Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" makes readers nervous. But how? Young scholars create a drawing while listening to a reading of Poe's eerie tale to understand how writers create the mood of their stories and what their writing style...

Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" is a bit of a puzzle. Critics have long debated Montresor's motives for killing Fortunato. Young scholars examine examples of the three types of irony (verbal, dramatic, and...

Current immigration issues and the rhetoric surrounding the controversies come into focus with a lesson plan that uses Richard Blanco's anthem, "The U.S. of Us," written after the August 2019 attack in El Paso, Texas, to open a...

The second lesson in the Lord of the Flies unit asks scholars to consider the characteristics of a good leader. After generating a list of these qualities, they annotate a passage from the novel highlighting the leadership qualities of...

The second module in a series for high school seniors focuses on tracking the central idea of a text across genres and from multiple author and character perspectives. Twelfth graders read a speech by Benazir Bhutto entitled "Ideas Live...

Some things are beyond comprehension. Scholars read an excerpt from "Comprehending the Calamity," a primary source text about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. After identifying the gist, pupils complete anchor charts to analyze how the...

Get ready to review and revise! Scholars peer edit each other's literary analysis essay drafts. Next, using peer and teacher feedback, pupils compose their final drafts. 

Students investigate germs and how they travel. They graph the places in the classroom that have been touch by students to determine which five places have had the most contact. They write stories from a germ's point of view.

Learners, in groups, research primary sources and internet sites about different views on slavery. The groups form as either from the point of view of slave owners or those who want to abolish slavery. They write a written argument for...

High schoolers view film footage of the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. in the early 1920s and examine how the actions of the KKK have been viewed by different strands of the civil rights movement. They watch the film and answer discussion...

Learners view primary documents about the race for President in the time of Abraham Lincoln.  In this election lesson, students prepare arguments for and against Lincoln using an analysis sheet.  Learners create a poster or...

Dazai Osamu’s short story, “A Sound of Hammering” is the focus of a three-day investigation of modern Japanese literature and life in post-World War II Japan. The events in Osamu’s story mirror those in his own life, and give a...

Guide your class through a reading of the popular children's book, Frindle, with this comprehensive literature unit. Starting with a brief introduction to the guided reading process, the class goes on to read the story two chapters...

Focus on the literary elements of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince with a concept analysis sheet. With suggestions and explanations for many of the book's concepts, vocabulary, and other issues that may arise in...

Bring the drama of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea to class with a fun role-playing activity. Given a list of survival items, readers decide which items would be the most necessary for an adventure like...

It is difficult to articulate how growing up feels as accurately and beautifully as Sandra Cisneros does in her short story "Eleven." After seventh graders read the story and note the author's use of figurative language, they respond to...