Look back at the third chapter of The Cay with your class. Pupils will conduct a close reading, taking a second look at a chunk of text and responding to a series of text-dependent questions. Wrap up with an analytical writing prompt...

There has been a huge solar energy spill! Let's go outside to play in it. This lesson includes multiple experiments showcasing solar and wind energies. Scholars build a solar heater and an anemometer before testing the results. The...

High school juniors learn how to construct a strong argument by crafting a claim and using neutral language backed by evidence from reliable sources. To do so, they learn to evaluate sources and evidence to support claims. They then...

Pages and pages of engaging activities, worksheets, and writing projects on teaching folktales and fables await you! You don't want to miss this incredible resource that not only includes a wide range of topics and graphic...

Take your classes back in time. Learners read real historical texts from both Darwin and Wallace as well as an announcement of their findings. Using guiding questions, they make inferences and draw conclusions from the information in the...

Did Scopes violate the Butler Act? Why did so many Americans follow the Scopes trial? See analytical reading in action with a fantastic five-day lesson plan in which class members consider the historical context that provoked public...

What led to the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and how might historians approach this question differently? This rich series of lessons includes a short introductory video clip, analysis of six primary source documents, and...

Was the Scopes trial more complicated than a simple debate between evolutionists and creationists? As part of a structured academic controversy (SAC) activity, pupils consider multiple perspectives of the Butler Act and engage in close...

How does additional daylight hours affect people and nature? With the help from the legend Maui and the Sun and a grand conversation, scholars complete a graphic organizer to distinguish between the positive and...

How can evidence and perspective challenge even the most well-known of stories? Through primary and secondary source analysis, think-alouds, and discussion, young historians evaluate the historical narrative of Rosa Parks across multiple...

Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Building upon prior lessons in the series, this reading and writing exercise requires pupils to look back at their own writing, track character development in the novel The Cay, and analyze how Phillip has changed. The reading focus is...

Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....

Wrap up your unit on The Cay with an engaging argumentative writing assignment. Writers must decide if they believe The Cay should be banned. The resource includes links to several articles, which have been addressed and examined in...

Open with a discussion on weather and climate and then explain how tree rings can provide scientists with information about the earth's past climate. Pupils analyze graphics of simulated tree rings from various US locations for the...

Plan on using Gone with the Wind as a reading selection? Here's a packet of prompts for activities and assessments.

Characters often change over the course of a story or novel. Use the sample graphic organizer provided here to track how the narrator has responded to the sequence of events in chapter four through six of The Cay. In addition to this...

The Cay has been criticized by groups such as the Council on Interracial Books for Children because of the way race is portrayed. Explore the argument against the book while taking the author's perspective into account. Class members...

Teach young environmentalists to protect their planet's resources with a set of interactive experiments. Kindergartners and other youngsters learn about watersheds and the water cycle, while older elementary learners focus on fertilizer...

Why did many Tennesseeans support the 1925 Butler Act, which forbade the teaching of evolution? Using several primary source documents and a brief video clip, your young historians will draw connections between the broader historical...

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

Here is a great textbook chapter on China's establishment as a communist state in 1949 and the effects of World War II on the nation. The first page prompts learners to complete a timeline activity as they read the material,...