The emotional and spiritual oppression of slavery in the African-American experience is the focus of this lesson. Middle schoolers analyze various texts by Frederick Douglass and Maya Angelou related to freedom and oppression....

Develop a better understanding of "Blackbeard's Ghost" with this differentiated lesson. Working in groups on a creative project, middle schoolers can reinforce their reading comprehension and literary analysis skills. Use this...

Evaluative or Analogical? The wolf in the story of "The Three Little Pigs" and the wolf in "Red Riding Hood" represent what can happen to the unprepared. Despite his defeat in the end, the Big Bad Wolf is a good example for kids because...

A lot of writers don't like creating an outline before writing the first draft of their paper. Introduce them to what an effective and organized outline looks like with this presentation. Designed for higher education, you could easily...

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,...

Here’s a 19-page Things Fall Apart teacher resource packet from the UK that includes background information on Chinua Achebe, the culture of the Ibo people before and after colonization, and activities designed to prepare learners for...

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter—are they good for society? Pupils prepare for a class debate in which they voice their opinions on the issue. They read the main pro and con arguments, explore others' opinions, view videos, and discover the...

Almost 600,000 Americans are arrested each year for marijuana possession. Pupils decide if marijuana should be legalized for recreational use after reading state-by-state laws and the top pro and con arguments. The resource also includes...

Do you want to live forever? After reading Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” class groups adopt the roles of an ethics committee, product manufacturers, concerned scientists, and potential users of an...

Students research an author and gather information that seems to support that person as author of The Night Before Christmas. They work in groups to gather the most solid evidence and they write a persuasive essay presenting their argument.

There are not many more apt examples of ethics gone awry than William Golding's Lord of the Flies.. Ninth graders focus the ethics of decision making with the examples provided in the plot. They focus on the...

A current and engaging informational text with some superb scaffolding activities, this six paragraph article discusses the release of the iPad from Apple, eBooks, and the history of reading and writing materials. After reading the...

Novice writers often struggle to determine what style of essay to write when given a prompt. This worksheet helps to identify an appropriate form based on the language of the question. For example, key words like prove or justify...

A high-level introduction to fallacies of weak induction, including appeals to unqualified authority and ignorance, hasty generalizations, and weak analogies. Each fallacy is defined and shown with an example. For use mostly in college...

This presentation offers up some of the trickier rules of the English language when it comes to spelling. For example, one slide goes over the "i before e, except after c," rule. The rest of the slides present examples like this one and...

Take a look at the topic of violence as seen in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Discuss together the values that Atticus holds and brainstorm ways to combat violence in a similar manner to what he portrays in the novel. Get your...

A great student reference tool and graphic organizer in one worksheet! Young writers can read a detailed description of each section of a standard five-paragraph essay before completing a graphic organized with their own writing. The...

Turn your junior high talkers into effective arguers. Introduce these budding lawyers to skills that show how to support a claim, decide what clear reason is, and how to use evidence to support an argument. Time is scheduled for class...

Created for a 10th grade English classroom studying George Orwell's Animal Farm, this mini-project promotes exploration of character and plot. In the first section, young readers are required to characterize one character from the story,...

Dive into Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and determine what it means to conform in society, and discuss as a group with the thoughts and plans available in these documents. Included are multiple activities and brain targets that form the...

Employ this resource to expand efficient ideas on how to present and organize activities that describe how researchers can implement their research by using direct quotes, paraphrasing, and summarizing—without plagiarizing. Activities...

"Romans, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me for my cause." "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!" As part of a study of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, individuals as asked to compare the funeral speeches of Brutus and...

Designed for teachers who plan on using Markus Zusak's  The Book Thief, this packet includes background information about the author, themes addressed in and issues raised by the novel, a list of research and project ideas, and...

Should sanctuary cities receive federal funding, or do they defy federal laws? That is precisely the question scholars attempt to answer as they prepare for a class discussion or debate. After reading some brief background information,...