Curated OER
36 Public Policy Questions to Energize Your Government/History Classroom Debates
Need topics that are sure to engage your debaters? This list of public policy questions includes such topics as school mascots, regulation of major league baseball, physician-assisted suicide, and violence in video games. A great...
Curated OER
Telling Our Own Stories
Explore online profiles and social media with your middle and high school classes. Use blogs to inspire your class to craft a well-written, thoughtful response to a prompt you give. A few example prompts are given.
Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District
Parts of Speech Adjectives: Building Blocks of Grammar
How do you describe a jellyfish? Individuals write adjectives for Nomura's jellyfish, take notes, and check understanding with a formative assessment. Notes include the definition for adjectives, guiding questions to help writers...
Curated OER
A Year in Review: The Memoir
If you are planning a unit on memoir and autobiographical narrative, you should consider this resource. Using Internet research skills, pupils review works by James Frey and Henry David Thoreau. In response to these works, learners...
Curated OER
Homemade Holidays
Foster your high schoolers' creativity - and generosity - with this writing lesson. After reading the article "Homemade Holiday Gifts" by Frances Janisch (from the GALE Student Resource Center - Gold), pupils meet in groups to brainstorm...
NPR
The History of America’s Weed Laws
To understand the laws regarding marijuana use in the United States, you can go all the way back to the 1800's to learn about farming hemp, or you can go back to 2018 when California became the sixth state to legalize recreational...
Curated OER
Hamlet's State of Mind
Analyze various excerpts from Hamlet and read articles to develop an argument about his sanity. Middle and high schoolers write an argument essay defending whether or not they believe Hamlet is insane. You could modify this assignment...
Curated OER
The Great Gatsby Historical Background Using Multi-Genre Research Project
Before beginning F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, create a historical context of the Roaring 20s with this lesson. Set up a gallery walk with the provided PowerPoint, which features 10 topics related to the 1920s. Then begin...
Curated OER
The Final Word
Although this instructional activity is based on “Final Word,” Craig Wilson’s USA Today column, the strategies could be adapted to any local columnist. After reading three articles independently, groups share observations about content...
Indiana University
Asian Literature: “The View in Spring” by Du Fu
Over the course of the lesson, your pupils read and analyze a translated eight-line poem from the Tang Dynasty written by Du Fu, a poet caught behind enemy lines during the An Lu-Shan rebellion (755-763). Literary/historical context is...
Curated OER
Technology as a Design Tool for Abstract Artwork
Students manipulate pictures using Adobe Photoshop and digital cameras to produce unique abstract works. This instructional activity can be modified to include a painting/mixed media element. State standards are addressed in this...
Curated OER
African Ceramic Mask Making
Students investigate a variety of African mask types, design several masks, and create an example of an African ceramic mask in this 5th grade through High School Art lesson. The lesson can take anywhere from 6 lessons to 16 lessons.
PBS
Be the Press: Local Interviews, National News
High school learners research an issue that is important to them and apply the research to write a newspaper article. After thoroughly researching their topic, high schoolers strengthen research, analyzation, and writing...
Gobal Oneness Project
Passionate Pursuits
Not all technology is digital. Teach learners about the low-tech maker movement with a photo essay about six artisans from California and two articles about the local creator movement. After tackling the photo essay in small...
Global Oneness Project
Far From Home
A timely and provocative lesson plan inspires high schoolers to tackle the Syrian refugee crisis. They analyze a compelling photo essay before discussing and writing about it.
Curated OER
Learning Festival ~ Book Buddies Visit High School
Students work together to develop a festival for book lovers. High schoolers work with young children and practice their reading. Traveling between reading stations, they focus on different reading standards. They act as role-models...
Curated OER
Inference
Making inferences about what you read is an important skill for both elementary, middle, and high school learners. Focusing on events which occurred during World War II, they answer a series of questions related to what we can infer as...
Curated OER
High Frequency Word Work
First graders make an "All About Me" book. In this high fluency words instructional activity students use a computer program to create a book about themselves. Students write their own text.
Curated OER
Art Auction
Learners participate in a variety of activities that present art history. They arrange an art auction where each student serves as auctioneer to present a favorite piece. Students keep track of their accounts and bid to buy desired...
Curated OER
Making a Basic Clay Animal Sculpture In-The-Round
Students create a three dimensional animal sculpture. In this sculpting lesson, students use white art clay, gloss glaze, brushes, and wooden tools to create an animal sculpture.
Curated OER
Comparing Themes
Compare and contrast the themes of two works by J.R.R. Tolkien. High schoolers read The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, Then they write an essay that compares the themes found in each novel.
Curated OER
Teaching Correct Pronouns
I or me? Are your middle school grammarians struggling with pronoun case? Try this trick. Instruct your learners to look right before or right after the pronoun choice for the words and, or, nor. Have them cover the conjunction and the...
Curated OER
Speaker Report
Fifth through eighth graders think of themselves as newspaper reporters as they listen to a presentation by a guest speaker. As reporters, they take notes during the presentation. Using these notes, they create a rough draft and then a...
Curated OER
How to Write A+ Essays!
This instructional activity, which promises to improve the essays of your middle schoolers, contains a list of characteristics an essay should include. It breaks it down into the introduction, thesis statement, body, etc. There's also a...