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Mountain Creation: A Drama Exploration
Students explore mountain formation. In this cross curriculum earth science and legend writing instructional activity, students listen to the poem "The Way to make Perfect Mountains" by Byrd Baylor and identify examples of vivid language...
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Analyzing the Use of Irony in a Short Story
Ninth graders examine how literature connects to real-life and see how irony aids in the development of theme. They read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, and discuss elements of foreshadowing and situational irony. Then learners will write...
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Quality of Information: Point of View and Bias
Fifth graders identify stereotypes of Indian people based on perceived characteristics. They discuss the misconceptions. Students define quality of information and give an example from the story "Seaman's Journal: On The Trail With Lewis...
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Investigating Fables
Time for a story! Learners of all ages enjoy listening to stories, so read them some common fables and have them work cooperatively to create a fable. Differentiate for varying ability levels by providing sentence frames, graphic...
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Palace Adventure
Young language arts learners write and illustrate a short fantasy story based on the book Corduroy. First, learners need to develop a character. Then, through their writing and illustrations, they take their characters on adventures...
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Call It a Hunch
Give young scholars a chance to practice making inferences after reading the book Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges. They confirm whether or not their conclusions are true, have a class discussion, and then independently complete an...
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Tracking Down the Real Billy the Kid
Students analyze the role that gunfighters played in the settlement of the West and distinguish between their factual and fictional accounts. Using internet research, students explore the life of Billy the Kid. They write an essay on...
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What It Means to Be an American Indian
Students analyze primary source documents and evaluate historical evidence to find consequences of the policies that were adopted from the 1830s to today regarding Native American Indians.
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Letters from Lincoln
Fourth graders explore the childhood of Lincoln and pioneer life in early Indiana. Students respond to literature and write a story using historical fiction. Students explore the writings of President Lincoln and the pioneer community...
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"You Shall Do Your Best Endeavor" - Working With Primary Documents
Students read and interpret primary source documents regarding historic Jamestown. In small groups, they read the primary documents, answer questions, and view online maps of Jamestown Island and Virginia.
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Treasure Chest
Students explore Chicago in the fur-trading era. In this Chicago lesson, students discover what life what like during this time. Students read an historical fiction story about life in the fur-trade era. Students view replicas of...
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Choose Your Own Adventure
Students investigate the historical underground railroad. They also access technology to conduct research and write stories with the railroad as part of the historical fiction. The cumulative assessment is the creation of a book that...
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Fact, Fiction, or Bad Memory
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.
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History Detective: The Case of the Mysterious Trunk
Students role play as history detectives. In this historical inquiry lesson, students discuss what detectives do, analyze a trunk of "artifacts" and make conclusions about its fictional owner. Students complete six pages of related art,...
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"Night": A Study in Compassion and Courage
Learners read the novel, "Night" by Elie Wiesel. Using excerpts from the novel, they complete a performance and literary technique objective. In groups, they finish handouts to give them more information on the Holocaust. They compare...
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Shange's Novel Betsey Brown & Jazz
Students read a work of fiction and investigate literary values and structure of the work. They demonstrate understanding of the family values, cultural and historical context of the novel;
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George Washington's Revolutionary Journeys
Students take a closer look at historical maps. In this American Revolution activity, students examine the provided historical maps and documents to determine the assignments that George Washington assigned to subordinates during the...
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Sim's Cities
Students investigate city management and government by creating a fictional city in groups. In this civics lesson, students create rules and a mascot for their fictitious city which they create from poster board cubes....
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Portrait Analysis of Lincoln in Richmond, VA
Learners view and analyze a portrait of Abraham Lincoln made during his visit to Richmond, Va. Students determine the historical significance of his visit and create fictional newspaper accounts from various perspectives.
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Go For The Gold!
Third graders read fiction and nonfiction works for comprehension. Using the internet, 3rd graders participate in a WebQuest. They compare and contrast the Olympics in ancient Greece to the modern day Olympics. Afterwards, students...
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Visions in the Dust: A Child's Perspective of the Dust Bowl
Students examine primary source material of the Depression to correlate the fictional text "Out of the Dust" with actual visual, auditory, and manuscript accounts as found in the American Memory collections.
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Juvenile Delinquency
Ninth graders analyze and interpret historical research by examining, analyzing, and forming opinions regarding primary resources. They compare/contrast social conflict, its causes and effects, in regards to continuity and change over time.
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The Land of Immigrants
Students access information and data about US immigration using the Internet and other sources. They identify from research data the countries from which the largest number of immigrants to the US come from and create a database of these...
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The Crucible: Hysteria, Witches and Death
Eleventh graders explore the historical events of the Salem witch trials. After completing research and reading a play on the witch trials, 11th graders compare and contrast the historical facts to the fictional play. In groups, students...