A brief, dialogue-rich passage from Jerry Spinelli's novel Maniac Magee is accompanied by a well-written literacy assessment tool. Thematic content lends itself to age-appropriate discussions about race relations and social justice....

Hand out these project ideas when working with The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Pupils can choose from six different options or propose their own. The idea is that they will complete more than one project to meet the point requirement. The...

Improve your learners' reading and writing skills with a set of sentences designed to help pupils work with sight words. The teacher dictates while the pupils write; this is followed by discussion.          ...

How is that relevant? Scholars gain an understanding of the words relevant and compelling. They then go back to the End of Unit 1 Assessment Prompt: Adversity in the Middle Ages and look at the second bullet that pertains to relevant and...

Third graders read the story "Conejito" and write a descriptive story about the rainforest in Panama. They answer story comprehension questions, complete worksheet questions about a map of Panama, and rewrite a paragraph changing the...

Are you working on an Outsiders unit? Use this list of activities to deepen your middle schoolers' understanding of the novel. After reading S.E. Hinton's novel, young readers work on three required activities, including participating in...

Bring U.S. history to your language arts class with this lesson. Middle schoolers complete an interview for an oral history project, and discuss the importance of oral histories - and how they embellish written accounts. They write...

Peer editing can be fun and enlightening if it's done effectively. If you're having your class peer edit a general piece of writing (perhaps a personal response or short answer response), this graphic organizer could help. Reviewers look...

Grrrrr, gargoyles are on the loose! Young artists are familiarized with the history of gargoyles, examine pictures of them, and hear a story about them. Then, they draw a gargoyle and write down exactly how they did it (procedural...

A current and engaging informational text with some superb scaffolding activities, this six paragraph article discusses the release of the iPad from Apple, eBooks, and the history of reading and writing materials. After reading the...

Developing a topic sentence can be a real challenge for young writers. Make the process a whole lot easier with a poster that can be displayed in the classroom. The visual first describes the two parts of the topic sentence, the occasion...

Focus on a passage about the new year with your English language learners. You can start with reading the passage aloud to your class, and then launch into the related activities. Pupils match phrases, complete cloze-style activities,...

Starting at the very beginning may be a very good place to start, but it can also be very difficult for emergent writers. Help them get started by providing them with a setting, a main character, and a basic plot.

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" engages adolescents with its theme about the dangers of complete societal equality. Learners complete a graphic organizer to track literary elements in the story, as well as an inference...

Use this worksheet to research a future or past olympian. There's a space for researchers to brainstorm things they'd like to know, a space for them to record notes, and a KWL chart. There's also an open space to write a cumulative...

Support children with finding meaning in unknown words using this graphic organizer. While reading a piece of writing, learners identify unfamiliar words, using context clues and reference materials to find and record definitions before...

Test your pupils' skills with indoor decorating while finding out how well they understand prepositions of place. After practicing living room vocabulary, pairs furnish a room by drawing in items. They then present their room to the...

Does learning to write leave your kindergartners in tears? Use these easy and memorable strategies to guide their pencils in the right direction. With cute illustrations and simple instructions, your learners will be writing paragraphs...

Students read one of the following books: Minn of the Mississippi, Paddle-to-the-Sea, or Seabird, all by Holling C. Holling, and identify the five themes of geography as well as make a literature journal with chapter field notes. They...

Pupils complete a series of activities to discover life in ancient Egypt. They create want ads for pyramid workers, design vocabulary flash cards and dictionaries, and research famous Egyptians. They also research the "Curse of the...

Here's a clever way to introduce language learners to noun clauses. After a brief exercise that provides examples of different types of noun clauses, class members listen to the Association's "Never, My Love" and identify the clauses in...

In this creating a picture and paragraph about the state of Illinois worksheet, learners draw an illustration and write about it. Students complete 2 activities.

Have your class participate in an interview activity using an informational text about the Amazon. After reading a Cultural Connections story about a person from the Amazon, middle schoolers write interview questions based on the text....

Review word choice and grammar skills with this practice test for the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT). Fifteen multiple-choice questions prompt eighth graders to recall writing strategies, grammar skills, and...