Spark an animated debate in your class! Young adults consider some of the fads or trends that are prevalent at their school, as well as their own level of participation in them. Just how much of a role does popular culture play in their...

Have your middle schoolers participate in numerous activities designed to spark their awareness of literature. They express ideas and concerns clearly and respectfully in conversations and group discussions. Next, they view a music...

The Nazis used the power of propaganda to encourage confirmative views and the discrimination of Jews. A social studies resource illustrates these issues through discussion, image analysis, and a writing exercise.

Feeling the pressure to confirm is something any adolescent can relate to. Explore an essential theme with a response to literature assessment that prompts learners to identify main ideas with evidence and supporting details.

Peer pressure and the desire for acceptance are powerful things. A thought-provoking lesson looks at the positive and negative effects of wanting to belong to a group. Class members examine the roles of the perpetrator, the victim, the...

Go get the American Dream lifestyle! The 19th lesson in a 22-part series exploring American history shows learners the post-WWII economic boom. Using primary sources, photographs, and cartoons, groups discuss their findings and present...

Twelfth graders explore Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this reading and writing lesson, 12th graders read the book and think of five books to save from the fire. Students write an essay explaining why they'd save them. The essay...

As you work through Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, try out some or all of the 20 questions and activities included here. Useful for discussion questions, group assignments, or individual projects, this resource covers plot as...

Henry David Thoreau and Linda Ronstadt? Ann Tyler and Pete Townshend? Joyce Carol Oates and Pearl Jam? This richly detailed plan pairs classic literature with contemporary music and asks learners to analyze how the theme of conformity is...

Students focus on interpreting difficult texts and analyzing the impact these texts can have on their own lives. They think more about who they want to be as individuals, and realize some of the constraints we have due to the real or...

The activities in a comprehensive teacher's resource guide provides budding psychologists with opportunities to design experiments to study behavior, apply their knowledge of research variables, critique online behavior surveys, and much...

Approach the topic of popularity with this resource from the New York Times and their Learning Network series. The article is about Alexandra Robbins' "Quirk Theory." Learners respond to the article excerpt either on paper or...

Students read a short novel while filling in a graphic organizer for problem and solution.  In this sociology lesson, students use a prior knowledge and relate the text to theirselves and to think about their own...

The odds are in your favor that your pupils will love this lesson that uses The Hunger Games to launch a study of gender empowerment, as well as the influence of social constructs of gender. Groups discuss how Katniss Everdeen and Peeta...

Why did so many go along with Nazi policies during World War II? An investigatory unit includes four handouts, reading analyses, classroom discussion topics, and intriguing philosophical questions, helping learners understand the...

Tenth graders discover how various writers approach the themes of : alienation and solitude, living life "deliberately" and "phonies." Through reading, journaling, class discussion, and writing assignments they realize the power of the...

Students examine individuality.  In this music video lesson plan, students listen to music by India Arie to determine how music shapes our ideas of what normal is as well as how music is a form of poetry.  Activities are...

What's the difference between being a phony and being a conformist? At what point does conforming to alleviate loneliness lead to insincerity? These are the questions at the heart of this unit plan that uses The Catcher in the Rye...

As part of their study of the vocabulary used in Sonia Levitin's The Cure, class members create a card, filling in words from the novel, and then engage in a bingo game.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Hunger Games, Brave New World. Welcome to Banned Books Week. As part of a study of censorship and book banning, class members investigate censorship, the purposes of censorship, and First Amendment rights,...

Students reflect upon how Transcendentalism focuses on individualism. From their belief that God was within every person to their steadfast belief that every man should make decisions based on personal moral values, individualism was...

If you are in need of a lesson on tolerance or the impact of media, this plan could be useful. The class begins with a brainstorming session in which they reflect on their own experiences with bias based on appearance. Next, they...

In this deviance and social control worksheet, students respond to 14 fill in the blank questions and 15 matching questions pertaining to crime and how societies attempt to control it.

Students view a video clip and analyze it.  In this Stargirl instructional activity, students write about following others or their own will. Students answer discussion questions. Students build understanding of conformity.