Students, after reading and discussing the two texts by Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People" and "Greenleaf," analyze the plot, tone, characters, themes and setting in each story. They write their own short stories dealing with a...

Young scholars complete a variety of activities surrounding castle communities and fairy tales. They write a letter to a fairy tale character, write a fairy tale, create a model of a castle, and draw a map of a castle community.

Young scholars create stories about imaginary planets.

Students build a variety of comprehension skills through the nine lessons of this unit. Picturing events, monitoring understanding during reading, forming questions, and summarizing stories form the core of the lessons being taught...

Students explore the elements of a narrative for its purpose, type of audience, mood, main character, minor characters, setting, and conflicts in the story. A story outline is developed and a five paragraph essay composed in this lesson.

Students listen and restate facts from a text. They gather and organize information as a class. They create a report and present it to their classmates.

Students identify bias in how the events of the Boston Massacre were reported. They attempt to determine who is to blame for the Boston Massacre by determining the reliability the of sources.

Students identify differences in types of sentences. In this sentence structure instructional activity, students discuss the different ways sentences are written according to their intended audience. Students create different...

Students explore post Civil War development of the American West. They investigate the conflict among various groups involved in the settlement of the West and select a novel by a western writer and complete questions from the Exploring...

Students examine the impact of sound devices in poetry. In this poetry lesson, students read the listed poems and identify uses of alliteration, repetition, consonance, rhythm, rhyme, and slang. Students discuss how sound devices enhance...

Students examine the use of symbolism in literature. In this literary elements lesson, students discuss the attributes of symbolism. Students then read selected Cinderella stories and "The Fall of the House of Usher," and identify the...

Students discuss Paul Revere's ride. For this social studies lesson, students read Paul Revere's Ride and compare the differences between the poem and the historical event.

Young scholars gain an understanding of what pirates are and to prove they really did and do exist. They discuss the different myths the students have about pirates as compared to what the documentary discusses.

“It was a dark and stormy night.” Thus begins the 1830's novel Paul Clifford and, of course, all of Snoopy’s novels! Encourage young writers to craft settings for their stories that go beyond Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s often-mocked phrase...

Bridge to Terabithia is a story about friendship that brings magic into ordinary life. Study guides may not be magical, but the guided questions, graphic organizers, extension activities, vocabulary, and discussion questions help...

The stories of the Silver People, the West Indies immigrants hired to work on the Panama Canal, come to life in a lesson about the building of the Panama Canal. Groups research why the canal was built, how it was build, the working...

To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine...

Feel the freezing rush of an Alaskan sled dog race in this reading instructional activity. Using research about the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, seventh graders compare and contrast the depiction in the movie Iron Will. The...

Help your seventh graders relate the ELA Common Core standards to their own learning with these "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been translated into a statement that pupils can understand and placed on its own page for...

As a class, young writers learn how to develop a strong supporting character. They think and discuss a good friend they know, they use that friend as a basis for a potential supporting character. They create a supporting character as a...

Eighth grades can master the ELA Common Core standards! Show your learners the connection between classroom activities and assignments and the standards with this set of "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been rewritten as an...

It's no masquerade! If Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera is part of your curriculum, check out this three-page packet loaded with suggestions for before, during, and after reading activities.

Peter Bunzi takes readers to the Victorian era with two stories, Coghaert and Moonlocket. Accompany the literary time warp with a companion packet that offers a plethora of exercises. Learning...

Track your class's progress on all of the ELA Common Core standards with these handy charts. Along the left side, each seventh grade identifier is listed along with the full text of the standard. As you teach, reteach, assess,...