Students read a first person account of the bombing of Hiroshima written by a Japanese physician. By reading Michihiko Hachiya's journal, they discover the fatalities caused by the bomb itself and later by radiation poisoning. To...

In this language arts/social studies learning exercise, students rank on a scale of 1 to 10 , twelve different news sources. Students rank them according to reliability, and then provide an example of each kind of news source. There is...

Newspapers and broadcast news. Social media, blogs, and blogospheres. Class members generate a list of news sources they use to get information about events. The big idea here is to introduce the necessary vocabulary and to establish a...

Woody Guthrie will capture the imagination of even your most reluctant learners. Using his work, your class will develop their skills in non-fiction reading comprehension, interpreting primary source material, and use of multiple forms...

Extend a class reading of the novel The Sign of the Beaver across all subject areas with this literature unit guide. From basic discussion questions and writing prompts, to a research project about tracking animals, this...

Seventh graders study events leading to, during and resulting from the American Revolution. They review elements of a political cartoon. They create and dramatize a scene from a Revolutionary War novel.

A carefully crafted three-day instructional activity integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The...

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...

The Nashua River serves as the focal point of an investigation of the treatment of and care for natural resources. A reading of A River Rand Wild: An Environmental History by Lynne Cherry, launches the study and class members consider...

Sixth graders put themselves in the shoes of aborigines who were displaced from their homes in the 1800s by Europeans who came in and took their land from them. They discuss the social injustices suffered by these people, and write...

Is journalism more or less reliable with the influx of Internet sources? Learners investigate the issues of freedom of speech, journalistic ethics, and social responsibility in the age of Twitter and Facebook. After examining the...

"Stolen from Africa, brought to America,/Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival." Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldiers" provides high schoolers an opportunity to explore the rich history of the Rastafarians in Jamaica and the Buffalo...

Did you know that Vivaldi wrote "Winter," the final concerto of his The Four Seasons, in the key of F minor to echo the sleigh ride pieces popular at the time? A teacher resource kit, designed to support a study of the work, is packed...

Here is an art instructional activity that combines visual arts and language arts into one very nice package. In it, youngsters study a fascinating painting called Painting of Bear and Sun Dances. They begin to understand the...

William Shakespeare penned some of the richest and most fascinating works of literature—or did he? Middle schoolers read three brief informative passages and conduct additional research to evaluate the claim that Shakespeare did not...

After brainstorming the various aspects of cultural identity, class members interview each other, examine video clips, and read stories to discover how these aspects reveal one's cultural identity. Individuals then craft a quilt square...

Fifth graders collaborate with another fifth grade classroom while learning about various locations in the United States. This is a telecollaborative video conferencing project that is designed for students studying United States history...

Young scholars listen to data on African American women in Texas before the Civil War. In this Civil War lesson, students compare and contrast the lives of slave and free women, and discuss case studies, locating areas on a map. Young...

Fifth graders explore historical fiction. In this genre study lesson, 5th graders go on a text feature scavenger hunt to identify the parts of a historical fiction text. Additionally, students read the book, My Secret War and discuss...

Mathematicians can be famous, too! Introduce your class to Eratosthenes with a reading passage. After they complete the passage, learners respond to five questions, some of which require opinions and others reading comprehension skills.

Do research projects at your school look like a class of eighth graders staring at a blank screen? Use the Big 6 research method to guide middle schoolers through the process of finding a topic, searching for and evaluating sources,...

Here's a fun, creative approach to the profoundly important issue of human rights. Young citizens do three activities, two of which involve them finding images from magazines that reflect human rights of their...

After watching Treasure in the Sea, a documentary about Channel Islands National Park and the video First Contact, about the voyage of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo to the Channel islands, groups research and then compare the...

Imagine being part of a team of scientists that discover the oldest human remains in North America. Imagine being part of the crew that documents this discovery. Class members get a change to be part of such an exciting adventure in a...