What part does media play in creating, defining, and perpetuating popular culture? High schoolers chart their encounters with fads, trends, and icons and reflect on the media's influence on popular culture.

Critically analyze advertising techniques, such as circular reasoning, bandwagon, testimonial, and repetition, with worksheets that effectively discuss and illustrate how the media aims to influence.

Commercial advertising—we can't get away from it, but do we realize just how often we are being advertised to? With this lesson, scholars analyze mass media to identify how its techniques influence our daily lives. Learners browse...

Accompany a novel study of Hatchet by Gary Paulson with a unit consisting of 16 lessons focused on physical and emotional survival. Reading the story along with a variety of informational texts, scholars compare and contrast reading...

Paul Fisher, the main character in Tangerine, comes to see that it's the choices in life that lead to the consequences that make all the difference. A unit study of Bloor's young adult novel leads readers down this same path. 

The ambiguity in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre makes the novel a perfect choice for a shared inquiry discussion. Readers respond to open-ended questions with evidence drawn directly from the text. 

Whether new to teaching Beowulf or an experience pro, you'll find much to like in a richly detailed unit plan that asks readers to consider how the epic represents the difficulty in defining good and evil but also reflects the changing...

Compare and contrast the ideologies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle schoolers conduct research regarding civil rights and rhetorical strategies used in political speechs. They examine the strategies that both men employed...

Your high schoolers explore the role of artists in society in a creative three-week unit. First they customize art supply bags using paint, embroidery, appliqué, and other media. They imagine their ideal artistic work space and...

It's not often that you come across a clever laboratory activity that is both imaginative and comprehensive! Using M&M's and Reese's peanut butter candies to represent two different clam species, young biologists test for "relative...

The courage of Las Mariposas, the Mirabal sisters, is the focus of a series of activities designed to accompany a reading of In the Time of the Butterflies that ask readers to consider what it means to be courageous. Beautifully crafted...

Learners investigate how energy travels through glass. In this energy usage lesson, students conduct an experiment in which they decide if window film affects how much energy travels through the glass. Learners use a journal to make...

Learners discuss wartime propaganda after viewing the World War II film "Christmas Under Fire." They answer discussion questions, identify passages of propaganda from a transcript of the film, and write a brief from the Ministry of...

Middle schoolers observe and evaluate evidence of Alaska Native cultural symbols and artifacts. They research historical data from a variety of primary resources, including the Harriman expedition journals, related web sites, oral...

Fifth graders compare and identify variables that affect the rate of a chemical change using Alka-Seltzer, water, ice, and hot water. They time how long each variable takes to pop the canister into the air, and record the results on a...

Students conduct research through library and Internet resources. They research in a multidisciplinary fashion, and make creative leaps in their analysis and interpretation of the novella.

Students enter the room, receive a film canister that contains materials that be added to the dirty water bell jar. They record on their data table who or what is doing the adding and the actual substance that has been added to the bell...

Students recognize modes of transportation. They research historical data from a variety of primary and secondary sources including the Harriman expedition journals, related web sites, and photographs from the expedition. Students...

Students evaluate maps using the TODALSIGs basic map analysis system, explained on the worksheet. They create a map of Alaska using TODALSIGs. Students brainstorm the elements of maps.

Students analyze selected pieces of art and infer how they reflect a sense of disillusionment, and/or cynicism in American society in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal. Then they identify and place cultural attitudes...

Students investigate the Ideal Gas Law. In this three states of matter lesson, students create Alka-Seltzer rockets using film canisters. Students record observations and data according to the scientific method and explain the gas...

Students explore their role as consumers and conservationists and what roles they play in today's economic climate. They explore resource allocation issues. Students analyze data and draw comparisons between historical and present-day...

Young scholars discover the ideas of enlightenment by reading historical poetry. In this philosophical lesson, students read poems by Sir Walter Scott and Sergeant Joyce Kilmer while discussing the themes of the writing with classmates....

High schoolers examine the concept of heroism in this instructional activity, through personal reflection, group activities and a thoughtful analysis of the documentary, HEROES OF GROUND ZERO. They explore their own understanding of what...