How well do your pupils know My Antonia by Willa Cather? Take some time to create questions about the text. After examining a teacher model, individuals write questions that match each level of Bloom's Taxonomy and draft answers to these...

As you read a story or novel, have your class members put together and fill out a journal. They will have the chance to illustrate a cover page, draw and write about various topics, respond to a focus questions, and draft a paragraph.

Strengthen your high schoolers' writing with a series of steps for writing successfully. With sections on organizing an essay, choosing a topic, crafting a thesis statement, and revising a draft, the lesson encourages your class to...

Class members choose a current social, political, environmental, or economic problem presented in Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, research this problem and a variety of suggested solutions, before...

Pitch your best news story to your news team, or the peers in your journalism class, with a lesson plan about finding, reporting, and presenting a story. After watching clips of different examples, as well as strategies for...

Knowing the basics of drafting allows individuals to create drawings that show all the views and measurements necessary to allow others to visualize the original object. Pupils gain experience by drawing three orthographic views of...

What would you ask Abraham Lincoln if you had the chance? Class members draft interview questions for the 16th U.S. President, and imagine what his responses would be.

Why did the Founders make it so challenging to amend the US Constitution? To gain an understanding of why the process is so difficult, class members engage in a Constitutional Convention simulation. Groups draft, propose, and debate...

With 52 task cards, learners will not run out of things to do with a book they are reading independently or with the class. Tasks include making a poster on a specific topic, writing a summary, drafting a sequel, creating a windsock,...

Welcome scholars back from spring break with a prewriting activity that challenges them to draft a narrative account of one event that took place over the long holiday.

Close the unit on Esperanza Rising with an in-class analytic essay on how Esperanza changes over the course of the novel. Writers can use any of their notes and work from the unit as well as their drafts of the first two paragraphs of...

Ask your learners to synthesize what they know about Waiting for the Biblioburro by writing a well-organized paragraph. Young writers focus on using transition words and including specific details in their paragraphs. The plan allows for...

Using everything they have learned about writing paragraphs over the past few lessons of the unit, class members compose an informative paragraph independently. This is an authentic assessment of their ability, since learners have...

After discussing Haley's techniques in his conclusion of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, class time is devoted to drafting, sharing, and getting feedback on writers' college essays.

After discussing the narrative structure, intended audience, and purpose of Chapter 1 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, class members draft their statement of purpose for a Common College Application prompt that distinguishes them from...

Writers use class time to develop the draft of their personal narratives, drawing on techniques Haley uses in The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Chapter 12 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X discusses Haley's narrative techniques, mainly how he uses point of view and foreshadowing to build interest and suspense. Class members read and annotate chapter 13 of the text as homework...

Class members take a break from discussing The Autobiography of Malcolm X to focus on their personal narrative essays. Before working on their drafts, they review what they have learned from their study of Haley's narrative about...

In this first activity of the unit, class members continue to work on their draft of a narrative essay response to a prompt found on the college Common Application.

After a brief discussion of their independent reading texts, pairs exchange their college narratives and, using the provided peer review tool, give their partner suggestions on how the draft may be improved.

As an end-of-unit assessment, class members complete the final drafts of their Common Application narrative essay and then meet in pairs to discuss the independent reading selection.

Young writers compose a gripping ending to their historical fiction narratives. Following the previous lesson plan, where learners wrote a bold beginning, class members examine exciting endings from a literary text. They then draft their...

Have you ever wanted to learn more about a subject after you finished a great book? Guide ninth graders through an inquiry-based research project as they finish the first chapter of Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation. Having...

As the first in a two-part, end-of-unit assessment that encourages readers to synthesize the unit's main ideas, class members review their notes for each of the three texts they read and develop three open-ended discussion questions...