How can word choice affect a political speech? Middle and high schoolers examine the text of the 1999 State of the Union Address, and then determine how newspaper articles and television reports describe and analyze the event. Use this...

Should Internet users who send data-heavy content pay higher fees than those who are involved in activities, like sending an email, that have less content? This question is at the heart of the Net Neutrality debate. After watching a PBS...

Students examine strategies an author uses to provide qualitative and quantitative aspects of life in China. They apply the strategies to their own writing.

Turning 11 comes with a range of emotions. Explore those emotions by reading the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. Readers analyze the main character's reactions to the events of her day. Then, they write an essay describing what...

Tell the story of the math. Given a graph of a linear system, learners write a story that models the graph before crafting the corresponding functions. Graphs intersect at an estimated point, allowing for different variations in the...

Circles, lines, dots, boxes: graphs come in all shapes in sizes. Scholars learn how to make a bar graph using univariate data. They also analyze data using those bar graphs.

PBS has written a series of lessons on avoiding Armageddon. This is activity 4 of 5 and focuses on defining terrorism. Upper graders watch episode 3 of "Avoiding Armageddon - The New Face of Terror," read how terrorism is defined by the...

Take a journey with your class as they explore the different settings from Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Middle schoolers write postcards in first person as if they were the characters of the story.  

Students participate in various activities through the school week involving the high-frequency words on their word wall in order to increase familiarity with reading and spelling the selected words. In this word wall lesson, students...

Students use equations to represent practical situations. They solve linear equations and quadratic equations. The use of problem solving strategies is also developed.

Focus on terminology of the female anatomy and the various functions of each organ with a study on the pros and cons of birth control effects. This lesson plan provides a list of strategies to teach this concept for both female and male...

While not everybody will end up married, everybody does need to know how to resolve conflict. Learners examine several real-life scenarios involving a married couple. They use problem-solving strategies to help the couple come to an...

Here's a fresh take on the student writing portfolio. Consider having learners create an electronic portfolio. After examining sample e-portfolios, class members explore various software programs they will use throughout the course and...

Fifth graders calculate the perimeters, areas, and volumes of everyday objects. They discuss the word problem involving Puck from the Shakespeare play "Mid-Summer Night's Dream," and invent and plan a method for solving the problem in...

Demonstrate how to cite information from Internet sources without plagiarizing. If your class is working on an Internet research paper, and you have observed learners cutting and pasting directly from the Internet, the activities and...

Students examine denotation and connotation in language, and paraphrase a poem. They read and analyze a sonnet by iam Shakespeare, analyze the attitude and tone, paraphrase a poem, and create a thesis about a poem based on textual evidence.

Students examine problem solving techniques when working on spatial problems. They discover how models, sketches, and drawings can be used to understand on something works. They design a model of a bridge using given dimensions and...

Students study what occurs in the division process, rather than just following prescribed steps. They expand number sense to include integers and perform operations with whole numbers, simple fractions, and decimals. They write a word...

A great resource for your unit on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Small groups conduct research about related topics (list included), write papers, present PowerPoint slide shows, and take a student-created test. Fill in a few...

Young scientists compile everything they have learned into a report in the fifth and final lesson in a unit on the visible light spectrum. Access to photos from observatories, telescopes, and satellites allows learners to compare...

Students identify and categorize knowledge needed to design an experiment. They observe, recognize and describe the motion viewed. They document any changes caused by various solutions.

Students create an Easter egg that displays at least one secondary color, one primary color, and one motif of design.