Wrap up your unit on The Cay with an engaging argumentative writing assignment. Writers must decide if they believe The Cay should be banned. The resource includes links to several articles, which have been addressed and examined in...

Draw back the curtain, add a spot of joy to your class, and let learners be lessoned by a close reading exercise that models how to develop an interpretation based on evidence drawn from a text. Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue “My...

Does your ELA class need some practice with the specific skills outlined in the Common Core standards? Then this is the perfect resource for you! One in a series of connected lessons that cover the standards for reading literature,...

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

Prepare your class for argumentative writing with a close inspection of the controversy surrounding Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. All necessary articles and materials are linked at the beginning of the resource. Kids use the provided...

Building upon prior lessons in the series, this reading and writing exercise requires pupils to look back at their own writing, track character development in the novel The Cay, and analyze how Phillip has changed. The reading focus is...

If you're looking to set your class up for writing effective arguments, try out this idea. While originally created with freedom as a guiding idea, the activity could easily be adapted for other themes. As a class, create a chart of...

Look back at the third chapter of The Cay with your class. Pupils will conduct a close reading, taking a second look at a chunk of text and responding to a series of text-dependent questions. Wrap up with an analytical writing prompt...

All the Common Core standards are important, but they all build off the ability to cite textual evidence to support analysis. See how to scaffold this standard into three steps of development, along with assessment ideas with the ideas...

Conduct a close reading of chapter 9 of The Cay. Read the chapter again and ask pupils to respond to a list of included text-dependent questions. Finish the class with the provided writing assignment, which asks learners to use textual...

In a mock senate hearing regarding the development of ethanol as a fuel source, each person in the class is assigned a role to play and must uphold the stance of their character. Once the senate hearing is complete, each person writes a...

Class members adopt the persona of real figures in American history, Patriots and Loyalists, research these individuals to determine their stance, and then debate the question of whether or not to declare independence from...

Just about every public building that your students are familiar with has an access ramp which complies with ADA requirements. As it turns out, designing such a ramp is an excellent activity to incorporate slope, the Pythagorean Theorem,...

Explore the works of Dr. Seuss, such as Horton Hears a Who, Horton Hatches and Egg, The Sneetches and Other Stories, The Lorax, The Butter Battle Book, and Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. Each story lesson includes reading...

Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

How is religious freedom connected to the conflict between China and Tibet? After reading an online passage of background information, your learners will divide into groups and both read and view an interview with the Dalai Lama. They...

Here is a fantastic World War I research project that includes clear guidelines for topic choice, guiding questions, and suggested presentation products. Research subjects range from battles of the war, trench warfare, and weaponry, to...

Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic...

Over the course of two class periods, young historians explore human rights issues; specifically, forced labor in China. This resource provides everything you need, including relevant vocabulary, an anticipatory activity, and a...

This is an excellent resource for introducing and exploring the topic of child soldiers. Ethics, history, or theology classes will benefit from the high-quality information. This includes detailed instructions for an introductory...

Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...