Young historians learn how to make generalizations based on primary sources in a lesson that uses the autobiographies of two women born into slavery. The class watches a historical re-enactment of scenes from the lives of Harriet Jacobs...

The final instructional activity in the Crime and Punishment unit looks at the societal injustices depicted in Dostoyevsky's novel. Scholars examine the schisms between men and women, between wealth and poverty, between religion and...

A study of Jan Felipe Herrera's poem "Every Day We Get More Illegal" opens the door for a discussion on immigration. To begin, class members examine the photograph "Desert Survival," record their observations of the image, and then...

Introduce fourth graders to poetry with a three-week unit that has them examine the structural elements of poetry, analyze poems, and craft their own original poems rich in sensory details and other poetic devices. Young scholars study...

Black berets, black leather jackets, raised black fists, chants of "Power to the People!" These are the images that many associate with the Black Panther Party. Often forgotten are the programs the party created during the Civil Rights...

Conflicts come, and conflicts go, but it's how to resolve those conflicts that learners need to know. After identifying the states of conflict in a news article and engaging in a role-play activity, class members reflect on recurring...

Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac has enjoyed popularity since its debut in 1897 due in large part to the themes it addresses. Instructors planning on using the play with their classes will find much to like in this teaching guide. The...

Sometimes what you get is far more than what you first see. The third routine in the Building Community series asks participants to engage in a See, Think, Wonder strategy. Small groups analyze a projected image, infer what is happening,...

Two stories by Roald Dahl, "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "The Landlady" provide readers an opportunity to compare stories by the same author. After a close reading of the stories, teams select a character from one of the tales, craft...

Teach readers how to distinguish between a topic and a story's theme in a short activity that uses the children's book, Should I Share My Ice Cream, as an exemplar. After listening to the story, pairs generate a list of topics...

The Core Knowledge Foundation offers this teacher guide to Robert Louis Stevenson's gothic novel about the duality of humankind. The 128-page guide includes a unit introduction, unit calendar, nine scripted lesson plans, assessments with...

To understand how the allotment policy embedded in the Dawes Act, passed by the U.S. government in 1887,  affected the tribal sovereignty of Native Americans, young historians examine various maps and documents and Supreme Court...

Young scholars are asked to reflect on how personal experiences might influence points of view and perspectives. They read poems and biographies of the poets and then match the poem to the poet. To justify their matches, learners...

Spoken word poetry, more than almost any other form, reveals the historical and cultural perspective of the poet. High schoolers listen to various spoken word poems, select one to research in-depth, and then apply what they have learned...

"Who am I?" Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Necklace," Julio Naboa Polanco's poem "Identity," and a clip from a Jason Bourne film provide learners with a context to consider the traits that makeup identity. Scholars create a...

Separate and very unequal! An interactive presents learners with two images: a photograph of a boys' bathroom at a school in Gloucester County, Virginia, and a second of a girls' bathroom at a different school in the same county. The...

In addition to her letters to her husband, family members, and friends, Abigail Adams also wrote to key political figures of the time. In this lesson, scholars examine letters Adams' wrote to and received letters from Thomas Jefferson...

What do a colt and a boy in a tree have in common? More than might be first apparent. The fourth interactive in a series of ten introduces readers to intertextuality, the process of using abstract thinking to consider how one text...

Is Sherlock Holmes an inductivist or a deductivist? Users of this interactive to distinguish between inductive and deductive reasoning. They consider in various situations whether it is better to list evidence and then introduce a claim...

A mid-unit assessment challenges scholars to use their close reading skills to identify the main idea and key details. After reading a brief excerpt, learners answer a series of questions—multiple-choice, short answer—complete a graphic...

Take a walk with me. Scholars participate in a gallery walk of the anchor charts their groups created about Inside Out & Back Again in the previous lesson plan. Pupils take notes about Ha's character on sticky notes as they take the...

Learners use a jigsaw activity to examine characters in "Left Behind." Each group member focuses on a different character and then regroups to those with the same focus. Class members then return to their home groups for discussion...

Who's that talking to? Readers listen to a reading of the "Forgotten Ship" transcript and answer questions focusing on word meaning and choice. They complete a chart to track the multiple narrators in the script. For homework, readers...

We have an appointment! Scholars meet with another discussion appointment to discuss the text structure of the poem "Incident" by Countee Cullen. They use a Note Catcher to guide their thinking and compare the structure to chapter 8 of...