Following an online activity, scholars complete a Grafitti Wall in which small groups write words and phrases on chart paper pertaining to Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and Thanksgiving. Pupils perform a close reading then answer a series of...

Find the main idea in an informational text with a versatile lesson. Three levels of differentiation help you implement the strategy in any age or class level, based on the ability and objectives of your learners.

Benjamin Franklin identified 13 virtues that he felt would strengthen his character if he could focus on each one. A thorough lesson explores high schoolers' personal values in the context of their lives, and compels them to strive for...

Here is a must-have resource for studying fairy tales, myths, and folktales with your class! It includes instructional ideas, activities, and materials to support a month-long review of these three unique genres of writing.

Our sense of smell has a wonderful way of bringing back memories. Unlock those memories with an olfactory-inspired writing prompt that challenges writers to tell a story about a specific smell and the memories it conjures.

It's time to refine writing and word choice. Learners work on Part 1 of their end of unit assessment by creating an essay titled What Makes a Hurricane a Natural Disaster? They use glossaries and graphic organizers from previous...

Scholars discuss the many ways they use persuasion in their everyday lives and brainstorm specific ideas for encouraging someone to do something. With the list of persuasive techniques they made, young writers complete a graphic...

Improve high schoolers' public speaking with an engaging activity. Class members select three personally relevant quotes from a list. They then write a short speech for each quote, explaining how the quotes are personally relevant....

Phrenology, the belief that parts of your brain control certain aspects of your personality, is described in Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science. While we now know much more about the brain, learners use this...

Scholars first complete an assessment task on writing linear equations to model and solve a problem on a running race. They then take part in a card matching activity where they match equations and graphs of lines to diagrams of fluid...

As the saying goes, art often imitates life ... and literature! A series of activities designed to accompany a visit to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art encourage writers to find inspiration in various landscapes. The lesson includes a...

An assessment sheds light on scholars' ability to read, gather evidence, and draft an original written composition. Learners read an informative text twice before taking notes and discussing their thoughts and textual evidence with a...

Scholars showcase their narrative writing skills with a science fiction writing assignment. Six pages present writers with a question to answer accompanied by a detailed picture to draw. All together, pages create a space-travel guide.

There are lots of details that make you who you are! Illustrate what those details are with a personal concept map project. After learners view a step-by-step presentation, the follow a rubric to complete a concept map about themselves.

What would you do if you got an extra day every week? Partners share some information about their routines and lives and write compositions about one another based on the information. Each partner tries to guess what the other person...

Budding poets create two acrostic poems, one for their name and another using a word of their choice. Over the course of five days, scholars compose, revise, publish, and share their work with their peers.

Read like a writer. Scholars read a model literary analysis in preparation for a similar writing assignment before annotating each paragraph for the gist. Next, pupils devise a list of qualities of a strong literary analysis essay. 

Let's get visual. Pupils plan visual displays to accompany their upcoming opinion speech presentations. Additionally, they practice editing sentences for clarity before revising their speech drafts.

Instruct your readers to scrounge through the pages of Maniac Magee in search for descriptive passages or words they may use to write poetry. As they look for meaningful, sensory descriptors in Jerry Spinelli's novel, readers...

Track the progress of your fourth graders' reading and writing skills with this practice Common Core assessment. Based on a collection of six reading passages that include narrative stories, poetry, and a series of...

Encourage scholars to retell their favorite short story or folktale, adding personal details to make it their own. After reading their book of choice several times, story tellers retell a tale verbally to their classmates. 

An effective lesson plan truly can make all the difference. Seventh graders read, analyze, and annotate Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" before writing an essay about what they believe to be the theme of the iconic poem.

As teachers, it is our job to encourage learners to stand up for what they believe in and help them learn lessons from life's events. A set of practice questions designed for the ELA MCAS assessment features passages that teach positive...

As part of their reading of Leslie Marmon Silko's "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit," class members analyze how the author develops her narrative through dialogue, description, and multiple plot lines.