Curated OER
To Fight Or Not To Fight: a Debate About Violence Encourages Critical Thinking Skills
Learners read article about student violence, discuss why it happens, and explore non-violent options.
Curated OER
Who Fought for the Confederacy?
Did the Confederate Army really consist of southern volunteers? Using primary sources, historians examine the story behind the "Twenty Negro Law" and realities of conscription during the Civil War. A letter and a lithograph (included as...
Media Smarts
Media Awareness Network: Hate or Debate?
Discuss the difference between legitimate debate on a political issue and arguments that are based on hate through a science-fiction scenario that shows how a controversial issue can be discussed in both ways. Then learn how purveyors of...
Curated OER
The Metamorphosis During Reading Activity: Problematic Situation
Imagine waking up to find a giant bug staring back at you in the mirror! Think about the plight of Franz Kafka's Gregor in The Metamorphosis with a group discussion activity. Class members reflect on what it would be...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Sequence of Events
Are you in need of a new way to teach learners sequence of events and how to interpret a character's external motivations? Why not engage them in dramatic play? The class will use tableaux to convey the sequence of events in a familiar...
Novelinks
Where the Red Fern Grows: Question Answer Response Strategy
What makes a good question? Middle schoolers explore the use of questioning through QAR, the question answer response strategy, while reading Where the Red Fern Grows. They learn about the four types of questions: right there, think...
Curated OER
Primary History Children of Victorian Britain Extension Activity - Children at Work
What a great way to have your class learn about the lives of children in Victorian England. Learners sharpen their research skills as they study the history of children who worked in England. They choose extension projects to complete.
Curated OER
Nuts and bolts
Learners work in groups to create a storyboard about their video. They shoot a video designed to teach others to connect the computer and camcorder and how to capture video in Adobe Premiere Elements editing program.
Curated OER
Solar Kit Lesson #8 - Positioning Solar Panels II: Explorations with Stationary Panels
This lesson is preparation-intensive, but well worth the investment. You will construct five or six portable testing stations with which lab groups will gather data on the best position for collecting sunlight with a solar panel. This is...
Curated OER
Beach Poetry
Familiarize young analysts with the relationship between words, meaning, and visual images. They consider the relationship between the painting Beach Poetry and the poem Sandpaper. They compose and illustrate an original a...
Curated OER
Water Wars
Young scholars investigate the water wars taking place in Ethiopia. For this global issues lesson, students research the water shortages in East Africa. Young scholars participate in a discussion that requires them to put themselves in...
Warren County Public Schools
Small Group Discussion Questions
Support a class reading of the novel Song of the Trees by Mildred D. Taylor with this series of discussion questions. Covering a variety of topics from character and setting to historical accuracy and symbolism, these questions...
Turabian Teacher Collaborative
Parts of Argument II: Article Critique
Break down the parts of argumentative writing with a critical thinking activity. High schoolers read an article of your (or their choice), and use a graphic organizer to delineate the ways the author structures his or her arguments.
Mobile Education Store
LanguageBuilder for iPad
Help your child hone his/her verbal communication skills and basic understanding of sentence structure with an app that promotes descriptive verbal interactions. The child is presented with an image, prompted to make a sentence, and then...
Curated OER
Teaching “Level of Difficulty” through Close Reading, Reflection, and Performance
What makes a poem difficult? Explore that topic and more with your class as you work through the lesson detailed here. Using materials from Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation contest, individuals or small groups examine poems and...
Curated OER
Exploring Contrasts in "The Lanyard" by Billy Collins
Middle schoolers analyze the speaker's ideas and tone in the Billy Collins poem "The Lanyard." After identifying how each of the five senses is addressed in the poem, they compare images to draw conclusions about the speaker and his...
E Reading Worksheets
Making Predictions #3
Sometimes it's helpful for kids to predict what is coming next when reading a story. Show your learners how to use evidence from the text they are reading to predict what happens next in five short passages.
Scholastic
Drones Take Off
Ever wonder what drones are doing high above us in the sky? This article gives your class an insight to what those robots in the sky are doing. After reading an article on drone technology, pupils are prompted to respond to a...
National Endowment for the Humanities
A Defense of the Electoral College
Each presidential election year, the debate about the electoral college rages. Michael C. Maibach's "A Defense of the Electoral College" offers young political scientists an opportunity to examine a reasoned argument for why the...
New York City Department of Education
Grade K Literacy in Social Studies: Thinking About Families
Family is a wonderful subject for little learners to get excited about. Family is also the theme for a social studies unit that uses literacy standards throughout. The guide outlines approximately three weeks of instruction and breaks...
Curated OER
The Flower and the Fly
It's like a biological "Beauty and the Beast!" The fascinating mutualism between a South African meganosed fly and a deep-throated geranium builds a case study in coevolution for your biology buffs to analyze. After reading about this...
Curated OER
Defining success: A debate about success encourages critical thinking skills
Pupils develop critical thinking skills while exploring new ideas about success, discuss people they consider to be successful, and identify how they measure or define their own personal success.
Curated OER
Read a Transportation Story
Young scholars explore a transportation story. In this reading comprehension lesson, students read The Thumb in Box and discuss the provided discussion questions regarding the plot of the story.
Curated OER
Critical Thinking Strategies
Students explore critical thinking strategies. In this critical thinking lesson, students evaluate multiple choice answers. Students note similarities between incorrect answers and discover how to compare and contrast incorrect and...