A timely and provocative lesson inspires high schoolers to tackle the Syrian refugee crisis. They analyze a compelling photo essay before discussing and writing about it.

What were the driving forces behind American expansion in the nineteenth century, and what were its effects? Scholars watch a video, read biographies, engage in discussion, write journals and poetry, draw, and create a multimedia...

Students discuss a rugby match to understand its world implications. In this rugby activity, students read and analyze primary documents to find how sports effect world relations.  Students answer critical thinking questions related...

How many ways can you break down a classic novel? Based on the acclaimed Romantic-period novel by Emily Bronte, the Wuthering Heights activity pack includes a pre-reading exercise. Next, learners create a resume for one of the...

What factors go into a decision to enter a war? Use a collection of primary source documents and images to prompt a discussion about the American Revolution and the reasons for entering a war against Britain.

Do reporters write about what they see, or what they think? Examine the differences between investigative writing and opinion writing with a lesson from PBS. Learners look over different examples of each kind of reporting, and convince...

What does an ad reveal about a culture, or about the values of its intended audience? Class members examine a series of runaway slave ads—one of which was written by Thomas Jefferson—and consider what these primary source documents...

"What should we have for dinner?" "What am I eating?" "Where did it come from?" These three questions are at the heart of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Pollan's book provides some very...

High schoolers are able to critically read literature addressing historical data and answer relevant questions. They are able to formulate an opinion and support it using all knowledge documented and learned in this and previous lessons.

Young journalists use a "Is This Story Share-Worthy?" flowchart graphic to decide whether a story is worth sharing online. Instructors provide groups with fake news, poor quality stories, opinion pieces, biased news, and high-quality...

The Iron Horse encroached upon the land while conflicts escalated between Native Americans and the settlers. Sophomores study the print, American Progress then discuss how American progress affected Native Americans. They will study the...

The Odyssey, Star Wars, The Hunger Games. Odysseus, Luke Skywalker, Katniss Everdeen. Add The Hobbit and Bilbo Baggins to these lists, and you have a unit examining classic and contemporary myths, legends, and folktales with hero and...

Practice initial consonant blends with a fun, interactive game! Choose the sounds you'd like to practice, and then have kids place the appropriate pictures for their brick breaker boards. Spin the spinner to select a blended sound, and...

Karen Russell's short story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" has a unique structure that adds value to the story. With the fourteenth activity in a unit about literary analysis and textual support, analyze how Russell has...

Continue a thoughtful analysis of Sophocles' Oedipus the King by discussing the importance of dialogue within the play's structure. Ninth graders examine how Oedipus speaks about himself to his subjects and Creon before recording their...

Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo is the featured text in three classroom activities. The first activity asks readers to analyze the description of Edmond Dantes in Chapter XVII, paying particular attention to Dumas' word...

To understand the importance of the wording of the articles of the First Amendment (freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the press, and freedom to assembly and petition), teams argue before a jury for draft amendments of one...

Develop media smarts by considering the power of celebrity involvement in world issues. A look at the work of such celebrities as Angelina Jolie, Oprah, and Bono prepare learners to develop their own media campaign for a global...

Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is one of the most prominent and influential books to come out of the existential movement. Host a group discussion in which learners list different characteristics of existent art, group...

The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien's powerful collection of vignettes about the experiences of a platoon of soldiers during the Vietnam War, serves as a text for a crossword puzzle. The 23 clues asks readers to recall characters,...

How did the Voting Rights Act affect the daily lives of American citizens? A document-based lesson developed by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating committee (SNCC) presents a case study of the impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on...

A quick mimi-lesson models how to replace a fixed mindset with a growth mindset, a mindset that says improvement is possible with practice. Included is an activity that asks individuals to rewrite 10 fixed mindset statements with 10...

Photographs from the freedom movement in Selma, Alabama serve as the basis of two Socratic Seminars. Class members prepare for the seminars by closely observing the images, form a hypothesis, and use evidence from photo to support a...

Food poisoning, salmonellosis, E. Coli, shigellosis, tapeworms—all these words can strike fear into eaters. Alas, the five-second rule is not necessarily true! Two activities teach teens safety rules for food purchasing, preparation,...