Curated OER
Learning Life Lessons through Fables
Explore a variety of fables to learn life's lessons through engaging stories. Add rigor to the learning process with activities that include matching a a fable to the story's moral, short answer exit slips, and a three-column graphic...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Character in Place: Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” for the Common Core
How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty uses...
Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, University of Texas at Austin
Lesson 6 - Vowel-Consonant-E Syllables
Adding an e sometimes significantly changes the pronunciation of a word. An informative lesson introduces Vowel-Consonant-E syllables by helping learners see the difference between the pronunciation of words like mop and mope. A script...
National Endowment for the Humanities
“House by the Railroad”: A Painting and a Poem for the Common Core
Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading of the two...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Scottsboro Boys and "To Kill a Mockingbird": Two Trials for the Common Core
Here's a must-have resource for anyone reading To Kill A Mockingbird or using Harper Lee's award-winning novel in a classroom. The packet contains Miss Hollace Ransdall's first-hand, factual account of the trials of the Scottsboro Boys,...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Courage “In the Time of the Butterflies”: A Common Core Exemplar
The courage of Las Mariposas, the Mirabal sisters, is the focus of a series of activities designed to accompany a reading of In the Time of the Butterflies that ask readers to consider what it means to be courageous. Beautifully crafted...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Coloring Discrete Structures
What's the least number of colors needed to color a U.S. map? The lesson plan begins by having pupils view a video clip on continuous and discrete phenomenon, then launches into an activity reminiscent of Zeno's paradox. A separate video...
Curated OER
6th Grade: Express Yourself, Lesson 2: Close Read
The second instructional activity of a pair about Paul Laurence Dunbar, this plan focuses in particular on his poem, "We Wear the Masks." After a short historical introduction, class members conduct a series or readings, marking up the...
Historical Thinking Matters
Rosa Parks: 5 Day Lesson
What led to the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and how might historians approach this question differently? This rich series of lessons includes a short introductory video clip, analysis of six primary source documents, and...
Read Works
Lesson 4:Theme Matters
Determining a theme is one of the most difficult and most important standards in the Common Core. Use this plan to help your learners identify the message that an author is sending to the reader. The lesson plan is based around the book...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1: Unit 3, Lesson 14
After watching the scene from Romeo + Juliet in which Juliet argues with her parents because she does not want to marry Paris, groups do a close reading of Act 4, scene 1, lines 44-88, examining the word choices in the conversation...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1: Unit 3, Lesson 15
Where does Friar Laurence's loyalty lie? After listening to a reading of Act 4, scene 1, lines 89-126 of Romeo and Juliet, groups examine the details of Friar Laurence's plan.
Curated OER
Connotation: Three Lessons for Effective Word Choice
Over the course of three days, middle schoolers explore the concept of connotation. They differentiate between the connotative and denotative meanings of sports team names, develop their own team names, logos, and text, and revise a news...
Curated OER
Mapping Your Identity: A Back-To-School Ice Breaker
Identify the unique personal attributes of your class members. Begin by viewing the Visual Thesaurus and discussing displayed attributes associated with famous American leaders. Using these identity maps as models, pupils generate nouns...
Baylor College
Challenge: Microgravity
What a festive way to examine what happens to the heart in different gravitational situations! Small groups place a water-filled balloon in different locations (on a table top, in a tub of water, and held in a vertical position), drawing...
Idaho State Department of Education
Lessons for Social Studies Educators
Point of view, purpose, and tone: three concepts readers of primary and secondary source materials must take into account when examining documents. Class members view a PowerPoint presentation and use the SOAPS strategy to identify an...
Curated OER
Say Hi to Haibun Fun
What is a haibun? With this interesting lesson, writers will experience the Japanese writing form haibun, identify elements important to Japanese writing styles, analyze a haibun, and compose their own. Different from the typical journal...
BrainPOP
Civil Rights Lesson Plan: Tracking History Through Timelines
Use the accompanying assessment to determine your class's prior knowledge on Martin Luther King, Jr. before beginning a lesson on the famous civil rights movement leader. The resource has young historians thinking about life for African...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1: Unit 3, Lesson 17
Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3, lines 139-170, is the focus of this day's lesson plan. Readers examine the dramatic irony in Juliet's comments and consider how "lamentable chance" caused by a "greater power" plays a role in the tragedy.
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1: Unit 3, Lesson 20
The final session in this 20-lesson plan unit asks individuals to use their Quick Writes, discussion notes, worksheets, and annotated text to craft and support a claim about how Shakespeare develops either Romeo or Juliet as tragic heroes.
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2: Unit 1, Lesson 10
An engaging unit connects Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson's shared themes of madness and departure from reality. The 10th lesson in the unit explores Dickinson's figurative language and structure choices in "I Felt a Funeral, in my...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2, Unit 2, Lesson 4
The concept of sight, whether it's a lack of sight or abundant sight of the future, plays a vital role in Sophocle's Oedipus the King. Develop your ninth graders' literary vision with a lesson that connects the prophecy of Teiresias to...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2, Unit 2, Lesson 10
The slow curse of realization begins to sink in during the tenth lesson in a literary analysis unit on Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Ninth graders carefully read the selected lines for evidence of Oedipus' feelings during a turning point...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2, Unit 2, Lesson 12
Ninth graders demonstrate their understanding of a central idea in Oedipus the King with a mid-unit writing assessment. Writers formulate a claim about the connection between prophecy and Oedipus's actions and craft an in-class essay...