Class members read the chapter, "Serfs and Sweetness" from Sugar Changed the World, and identify the central idea that the development of beet sugar and modern farming technology changed the reliance on the plantation system and made...

The Sugar Changed the World chapter, "The Sound of Liberty," highlights how the differing attitudes toward the slave trade shifted the issue from an economic concern to a concern for human rights. The passage contrasts Thomas Jefferson's...

What did the Crusades and plantations do with the global sugar spread? As class members continue their study of Sugar Changed the World, they examine how Crusaders brought sugar to Western Europe and how cultivating sugar led to the...

Can your pupils change the world? Explore this question with Ben Harper's song "With My Own Two Hands" and John Mayer's "Waiting for the World to Change." After listening to the songs, they discuss the tools at their disposal for...

How did Abraham Lincoln begin to change the minds of American citizens? Join him in his quest with a reading passage about Lincoln's experiences as a congressman and public denouncement of slavery. The resource contains reading...

The post-Revolutionary Period of 1781-1787, also known as the Critical Period, is the focus of a series of lessons that prompt class members to examine primary source documents that reveal the instability of the period of the...

Class members read "Satyagraha," the concluding section of Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, and analyze how the authors support their claim that terrible...

In a close reading of "The Overseer" chapter from Sugar Changed the World, groups focus on the words Aronson and Budhos use to contrast the lifestyles of enslaved people and their enslavers. The whole class then engages in an...

How did the Demerara Rebellion of 1823, the death of Reverend John Smith, and the Emancipation Bill of 1833 that abolished slavery throughout the British Empire change the sugar industry? Class members examine how the authors of Sugar...

The Haitian Revolution takes center stage as class members analyze a passage from Sugar Changed the World and consider how the authors select, present, and organize events to show how the tensions between the concerns for freedom and...

How can something be true even if it didn't happen? Invite your classes to investigate the truths found in the world of magical realism as they analyze short stories, poems, informational texts, video, and art from this genre.

Hand out these project ideas when working with The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Pupils can choose from six different options or propose their own. The idea is that they will complete more than one project to meet the point requirement. The...

Building upon prior lessons in the series, this reading and writing exercise requires pupils to look back at their own writing, track character development in the novel The Cay, and analyze how Phillip has changed. The reading focus is...

Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...

First impressions are crucial. Scholars read two excerpts from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. One describes the family's negative opinion of the hospital, while the other discusses their meeting a very kind doctor. Learners work...

How do writers create a specific tone in their text? As class members continue their study of Sugar Changed the World, they focus on the words and phrases that Aronson and Budhos use to create that tone in their descriptions of arduous...

Class members examine the images Arson and Budhos use to depict the working conditions on the sugar plantations and consider how these images support the arguments the writers present in Sugar Changed the World.

The supplemental text, "How Your Addiction to Fast Fashion Kills," allows learners to compare how other writers use evidence to support the argument that "rich countries benefit from harsh and abusive labor practices in poor countries."...

As part of a study of how writers structure their text so that readers understand events, class members do a close reading of "Is It Lawful to Make Slaves of Others Against Their Will?" a chapter in Aronson and Budhos' Sugar Changed the...

How do writers introduce and develop the central ideas in a text? To answer this question, ninth graders closely examine "The Age of Honey," the opening chapter in Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' Sugar Changed the World: A Story of...

As first-year students continue to investigate how sugar changed the world, the focus shifts to a consideration of why people with limited job options take on dangerous or subjugating work. Class members read an opinion piece by Nicholas...

In "How We Researched and Wrote this Book," the final essay in Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, authors Aronson and Budhos discuss their research methods and purpose in writing the text....

Class members continue examining how writers develop and support their ideas by comparing two texts about globalization. Alongside chapters from Sugar Changed the World, young scholars read an article by the World Bank entitled...

What is the connection between the spread of ideas and the expansion of the sugar trade? Class members continue their reading of Sugar Changed the World and use an analysis tool to identify how critical ideas in the chapters are...