Curated OER
Great Gatsby's Jazz
As Nick wanders the grounds of Gatsby's mansion, he observes the behaviors of the rowdy guests and listens to the music pouring over the lawn. Bring the music of the jazz age into the classroom with Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues,"...
Curated OER
Leveled Vocabulary for And Then There Were None
Chaotic, perjury, tenacious, vague, predatory, idiosyncrasy. Using Marzano and Brown’s six steps of direct instruction for vocabulary (choose, restate, illustrate, use, discuss, play) readers of And Then There Were None engage in a...
Scholastic
Quick as a Cricket Lesson Plan
Teaching young learners about similes is easy as pie with this primary grade language arts lesson plan. Following a class reading of the children's book, Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, young readers learn the definition of a...
Curated OER
Bringing Household Items to Life
Use folk tales as inspiration for learning about and using personification in creative writing. Learners brainstorm together in order to practice personification before writing their own poems or paragraphs about a household object.
Curated OER
Pride and Prejudice: KWHL
How much does your class know about the setting of Pride and Prejudice? Explore Jane Austen's romantic world with a KWHL chart that helps kids note what they already know about 18th century England, what they want to know, how they...
Baruch College Writing Center
Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting Workshop
What's the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing? Show class members how to find the main ideas from informational text and condense it, restate it, or quote it directly with a series of educational activities based...
Curated OER
Where Will I Go and What Will I Be?
Help your future college graduates prepare for higher education with this series of lessons. High schoolers complete research projects about the colleges they would like to attend, and create PowerPoint presentations about their careers...
Curated OER
Making a Pinhole Camera
Students participate in a number of activities in order to study the history of photography and to examine the workings of a pinhole camera.
Curated OER
Happy Birthday!: Internet Research and Historic Events
Talk about intrinsic motivation! Begin where your students' natural interests lie -- with themselves -- and launch a variety of projects with this activity. Class members research important events that took place on their...
Curated OER
Pioneer Values in Willa Cather's My Antonia
Included in this resource are a variety of activities to do while reading Willa Cather's My Antonia. The activities, which range from mapping out Nebraska to writing activities about pioneer living, are all designed with one...
Curated OER
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad
Students develop computer research skills while searching facts about Harriet Tubman. Students learn about ways in which Harriet Tubman's childhood influenced her future. Students learn to use primary documents to learn about the...
Curated OER
Pre-Reading Preparation
Students research the English Renaissance era. In this research lesson, students complete this activity before reading the story The Prince and the Pauper to learn about the history. They pick topics and work in groups to research...
Georgia Department of Education
Exploring Poetry and Poets
Combine the study of poetry and non-fiction texts with this complete and ready-to-use six-week unit. After reading numerous poems from local writers and compiling a personal anthology, high schoolers find and read a memoir or biography...
Curated OER
MLA Citation practice
Do your writers have a hard time properly citing their sources in MLA style? Use this SMART board activity to practice these skills in a fun, interactive way. After debating a topic in class (the lesson uses "random drug testing in...
Curated OER
Letter Sound and Letter Combination Accuracy: Sound Matching Adjectives
Kindergartenrs explore English by analyzing images in a picture book. This lesson on the parts of speech calls for young learners to view a picture book in class and describe characters, settings and objects with adjectives. Then, as a...
Curated OER
Alfonso Ball
Joey Alphonso made up this game, which is played using a gator skin ball and a tennis racket on a basketball court. The simple rules and strategy of the game are explained. This is a high-scoring, run around activity. Everyone can...
Curated OER
Poetry Through Digital Storytelling
Bring digital storytelling to your language arts class! To begin, learners select their own topic, such as a poem that reflects a life experience they had or a historical figure who interests them. Then they work to create a storyboard...
Curated OER
ICYouSee: A Lesson in Critical Thinking
Stress the importance of authenticating online resources and understanding the sources of websites' information with this activity. Using a Web-based activity, the lesson plan prompts young learners to think critically about determining...
Curated OER
A Look at the History of Book Banning in America
Why do books end up on the banned book list? How do these banned books contribute to the literary canon? Start by showing the photo slide show, and discussing notably banned books. Then focus on some of the most popular objections:...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Poetry Aloud/Poetry Out Loud
To appreciate the value of seeing and hearing a poetry performance, groups prepare readings of selected poems and then compare and critique their interpretations and videotaped versions of the same poem. Included in the resource are...
Curated OER
Ready-Set-Go-Whoa!
The Apaches: People of the Southwest offers readers a chance to employ the “Ready-Set-Go-Whoa!” strategy (an adaptation of the KWL) to test what they know and summarize what they learn as they read Jennifer Fleischner’s nonfiction...
Gourmet Curriculum Press
James and the Giant Peach
Here is a 19-page sample lesson that uses an interesting format. It starts with an appetizer or activity to make reading the book James and the Giant Peach fun. Then it dives into the main course or core content instruction which...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Identity Lesson 7: Logical Fallacies
What are the effects of competition in an academic environment? The competition between the main characters in A Separate Peace motivates a series of activities that asks readers to take a stance on competition, and then to develop a...
Penguin Books
Addressing Text Complexity - Making Independent Reading Meaningful
Many English teachers dream of a classroom full of readers silently enjoying their books. A useful guide helps make that dream become a reality by providing book recommendations for a range of readers. Each suggestion includes the...