Set up your writers for writing strong introductions with a formula for putting together supported thesis statements. This reference page breaks the process down and provides an example of how to compose a thesis statement, develop a...

Should the excavation of what is believed to be the cave of the Lone Woman of San Nicholas Island be allowed to continue? As a practice exercise designed to prepare pupils for a timed writing exam, individuals read two Los Angeles...

Who knew determining author's purpose could be turned into a game? Four teams compete to correctly identify the author's purpose for writing a series of passages.

Support your learners during the speech-writing process with a five-page graphic organizer. Pupils have plenty of space to write in their evidence and arguments on this resource. The organizer provides some prompts for each section to...

Middle schoolers observe the impact of natural disasters on humans, and become aware of the dangers of environmental hazards such as flash floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes.

Third grade readers are given clear learning goals with this Common Core checklist. By turning each reading standard into an I can statement, children can focus on mastering the required grade level skills.

Visible Thinking Routines are designed to help learners deepen their understanding of what they are learning and enable them to communicate their understanding of concepts to others. Individuals adopt one of these routines to use to...

Don't forget to read between the lines! Educators learn tips and activities to help scholars learn to infer to increase reading comprehension. Activities suggested include think alouds, backwards words, and who's who. the packet includes...

As part of their study of the history of the Channel Islands, class members craft an informational article to post on a bulletin board that features the Chumash ancestral tradition of tomol paddling.

Left-to-right, left-to-right, that's the way we read and write! Watch this short video clip and teach your young learners this chant before they start writing! 

Hold a discussion in writing about coping strategies to prepare your pupils for reading Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman. After journaling, pupils come up in an organized fashion and write...

Provide these templates as aids for pupils as they work to compose summaries of both stories and informational texts. The first two frames provide sentence starters to help learners structure their summaries and include all the necessary...

What a great way to discuss European immigration in the 1700's to 1800's in America. Learners identify regions where immigration occurred, list the reasons people moved to the United States, and interview an immigrant about their...

Help third graders focus on improving their speaking and listening skills with this Common Core checklist. By phrasing each standard as an I can statement, learners can monitor their progress toward clear, attainable goals.

There are some historical events that may warrant greater reflection and more in-depth analysis, and the decision to intern Japanese-Americans in the United States during World War II, as well as to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and...

Discover colonies! Young historians will listen to a primary source journal entry read aloud with a backdrop of wave sounds. They discuss the entry, add historical facts to a chart and personal insights to another. Then they listen to...

Who was Bill Picket? Interested readers work through an informational passage to find out about a famous "bulldogger" from the old West. They answer several reading comprehension questions and use a seven step process to decode new...

Choosing a poet or a theme, eighth graders conduct research in the world of poetry. They conduct Internet research and select five poems that fit their poet or theme, and create a seven slide PowerPoint presentation on their selected...

While the content of this lesson is more specific to the first grade, the directions given to work on a PowerPoint are well written. These directions could be used by anyone, with any content. Younger learners may need help reading the...

Have fun preparing a science podcast. After reviewing vocabulary, learners record audio files to create science vocabulary podcasts for particular units of study. A clever way to incorporate technology.

Next time you assign your young historians to write a persuasive essay, use this document as a starting point and support them with a rubric, tips for writing a successful persuasive piece, and a general essay outline.

Scholars scour thematically aligned texts to gather a bank of words they can use in an original acrostic poem. 

How does Oliver Twist, the novel written by Charles Dickens, compare with its screenplay adaptation? Although the activity doesn't require learners to have read the novel, the similarities and differences of the highlighted passages...

After brainstorming, middle schoolers write an expository essay for a writing project. They focus on supporting points, organization, and writing conventions to develop a well-integrated paper. In addition, they revise, proofread and...