Investigate and report on three issues related to a current election. Elementary aged learners research information about specific issues, develop an opinion, and write a persuasive essay using supporting details and evidence to support...

Tone and mood are easy to use interchangeably—and yet they are very different elements of literature. Help middle schoolers discern between the way a speaker feels about his or her subject and the way the audience is meant to feel with a...

Are you looking for a way to bring writing into your history lesson - or history into your writing lesson? This cross-curricular activity is helpful and fun, no matter what class you're teaching! Using "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" by the...

Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...

Conclude your novel study of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi with this biopoem activity. Get an in-depth look into the personal interests of the poem's subject including feelings, needs, fears, and more!  

"How can a magazine reflect a particular time and culture?" Using this prompt, your class explores the Victorian Era as it relates to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. They can also play the "Victorian Women's Rights" game for the year 1840...

Students identify the qualities that contribute to effective verbal and non-verbal communication. They use those qualities as criteria by which to judge an in-class political debate on education.

The American Dream is a goal that many pursue, but is it truly attainable for all people? An in-depth lesson explores the plight of migrants in twentieth-century America. The resource includes a video and author biographies and...

Included here are step-by-step instructions for conducting a close reading of The Voice That Challenged a Nation by Russell Freedman. After an individual and class reading, class members read carefully through the text excerpt,...

Explore the concepts of community and point of view with these activities complementing the children's book Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. Following a class reading of the story, ask students to either draw a map of the...

What are you doing today? What have you done this week? What will you be doing next month? Focus on verb usage with a series of fill-in-the-black exercises on basic tenses, inappropriate shifts in tense, and active and passive voice.

A presentation tool to record written text and pictures with audio voice-over and share privately or publicly online.

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...

Connect literature to narrative writing by researching descriptive writing techniques. Elementary and middle schoolers identify the importance of a narrator and voice in the storytelling process. They read writing samples and identify...

Scholars build background knowledge to understand the life and work of the union leader and labor organizer César Chávez. As they read teacher-selected resources, they complete a Building Background Knowledge worksheet and engage in...

Review advanced grammar concepts with this standard online interactive multiple choice quiz. Young grammarians must know simple grammar principles such as verbs, prepositions and adverbs as well as higher-level knowledge like passive vs....

Students distinguish between passive voice and nomialization.

In this passive voice writing review activity, learners read 7 sentences and then rewrite each one of them in the passive voice.

As part of a study of the Civil Rights Movement, class members examine documents associated with the Little Rock Nine, the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution, and chapters from Melba...

In this interactive sentence rephrasing worksheet, students rewrite each of the 29 sentences in a passive voice. This worksheet is interactive.

In this passive and active verbs worksheet, students read the instructions and study the examples for how to change a sentence with an active verb to one with a passive. Students change 10 active sentences about Halloween to the passive.

Young scholars write an acrostic poem and analyze a work of art. In this art lesson plan, students look at a picture and answer questions about it, write a poem, write about the setting in the painting they saw, and answer short...

Improve syntax with this explanatory handout. It clarifies one way to make writing more precise: avoiding nominalization. This resource provides four ways to find and change nominalization problems and 10 sentences to correct. There are...

Have your class learn the essentials of public speaking. They compose a speech for their fifth grade celebration using iPods and presentation software. This would be a great end of the year activity for any grade level.