Voting for the next president of the United States is about finding the candidate who most closely aligns with your own values and sense of democracy. High schoolers become acquainted with the candidates from the 2016 election with a...

Making decisions can be difficult. Here's a form that provides a starting point. After listing two options, individuals are asked to list the pluses and minuses of each.

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...

Fibonacci numbers are not only found in the classroom but also in nature. Explore the concept of Fibonacci numbers through a series of lessons designed to gain insight into the mathematical reasoning behind the number pattern, and spark...

Do these items have the same ratio? Through a learning contract, pupils master proportions by practicing proportions via word problems, graphs, and with manipulatives. An exit ticket checks for understanding at the end of the...

What are employers looking for in prospective employees? Career-minded high schoolers examine their strongest technical skills as well as important 21st century skills, including leadership, empathy, clear communication, working well...

Sooner or later, the learners in your class are going to move on to college and the professional world. Help them organize their goals with a project designed for groups, which prompts them to examine entry points and next steps for...

With its focus on nature, individualism, imagination, and rejection of traditional authority, Romanticism has great appeal to young high schoolers. After examining classic paintings and poems as well as current works, class members...

What do wizards smell like? A novel study for Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy walks readers through chapter one to help them answer the question. Scholars also practice vocabulary from the chapter and invent original similes.

Learners examine a variety of songs, poems, and books exploring and analyzing the theme of self reliance and being true to one's self. They write a poem, essay, or letter that captures their true spirit and individuality and then they...

Students consider the innate goodness of all people and the role self esteem plays in making decisions. They participate in a group role play about drug use and self esteem and answer discussion questions about the characters.

How many good habits does it take to be a successful adolescent? According to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey, just seven! Using the worksheets, learners answer personal growth questions and develop strategies...

Successful people know that they never stop learning. Eighth graders explore their preferred ways to learn new information with a reflective lesson about learning styles, that features surveys, writing prompts, and...

Assess what self-help techniques your students know for dealing with upset emotions with this conversational activity. The teacher begins by role playing as an upset individual, using visual images as prompts, and then asks students...

Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa were some of the greatest leaders of all time; what made them so great? Scholars discover the qualities of effective leaders using teen leadership activities. Learners complete an...

Statistics come front and center in this unit all about analyzing discrete data. Real-world situations yield data sets that the class then uses to tease out connections and conclusions. Beginning with the basic histogram and...

Students create their own self-portrait revealing personal information employing two types of aesthetics: imitation and expression. Emphasis is placed on the painting "Saint Helena with True Cross" created by Lucus Cranch the Elder.

When does hair (or clothing) disrupt the school process? This question is the topic of the argumentative paper your class with write. They read and react to an article about a boy who was expelled from school for sporting a Mohawk, then...

Are you a peace-keeper or a problem-solver? Explore conflict management styles through a lesson, fourth in a 15-part series, that combines individual assessment and collaborative work. Groups learn the basic tendencies of each style,...

Everyone learns and experiences life differently. A set of lessons about character intensities encourages middle and high schoolers to analyze themselves, their peers, and characters from a book based on the five listed intensities:...

What were the virtues and values that helped form America? Pupils watch and discuss a video, read biographies of early Americans, chart the differences between early American religious movements, write journals and letters, draw, and...

Once the class learns about the hero's journey, they'll find it in every story and movie they see! Take characters from their humble beginnings to their atonement and apotheosis with a set of lessons about the hero's journey...

Examine stories with a moral in a character development instructional activity. The class reads a short story written by Benjamin Franklin in which he pays too much for a toy whistle. Individuals then make text-to-self connections and...

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Readers not only identify aphorisms in Emerson's "Self Reliance," but also find evidence of transcendental elements contained in the essay. They also demonstrate consistency...