Why do authors write? Practice determining the author's purpose with a categorizing activity. Learners sort twelve short passages into three categories: persuade, inform, and entertain.

Look back at the third chapter of The Cay with your class. Pupils will conduct a close reading, taking a second look at a chunk of text and responding to a series of text-dependent questions. Wrap up with an analytical writing prompt...

Wrap up your unit on The Cay with an engaging argumentative writing assignment. Writers must decide if they believe The Cay should be banned. The resource includes links to several articles, which have been addressed and examined in...

A great resource for your unit on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Small groups conduct research about related topics (list included), write papers, present PowerPoint slide shows, and take a student-created test. Fill in a few...

What does the author believe about his topic? Why did he write in the first place? Challenge your class to figure out the answers to these questions as they read through informational texts. The resource provides a breakdown of the...

It is no easy feat to wade through legal and political documents. And incorporating this type of informational text into a literature class can also be a challenge. Here’s a resource that includes suggestions for how to address this...

Give your young learners the chance to discover more about countries in their world community with a research project. Class members write reports on an assigned country and include such major features as geography, important historical...

Ever come across an unfamiliar word while reading and can't decipher its meaning? Use a worksheet and graphic organizer that tracks and helps bring meaning to unknown words as learners read a text. A worksheet and graphic organizer come...

Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...

Make a study of the First Amendment and its relationship to freedom. Pupils rewrite the amendment and discuss the central idea before focusing on a specific phrase. After discussing, class members write a journal entry about the included...

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

If you're looking to set your class up for writing effective arguments, try out this idea. While originally created with freedom as a guiding idea, the activity could easily be adapted for other themes. As a class, create a chart of...

Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Prepare your class for argumentative writing with a close inspection of the controversy surrounding Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. All necessary articles and materials are linked at the beginning of the resource. Kids use the provided...

Make the move toward incorporating more technology in your classroom and help to prepare your class for the professional world. Here is a resource that describes the Common Core standard while incorporating technology and English...

Get started with The Cay. First, provide some background information and images that relate to the novel. Then pupils can create double-entry journals. Once that is complete, read the first two chapters, encouraging individuals to record...

Few things can motivate children to learn like the promise of a sweet and tasty treat. Given a bag of M&M®s, Skittles®, or other colorful candy, students first predict the contents of the bag before counting the pieces,...

Transform your class into young geologists as they learn about six different branches of geology. Using the included geology career descriptions and picture cards, learners work in small groups deciding which tools and locations fit...

Young learners develop a deeper understanding of target vocabulary. In pairs, pupils independently complete a series of word clue cards, asking them to find information about key terms, including their definitions, synonyms, antonyms,...

Use this simple nativity lesson in pre-kindergarten through third grade to familiarize children with Bible verses by way of a hands-on learning activity and coloring page. 

Conduct a close reading of chapter 9 of The Cay. Read the chapter again and ask pupils to respond to a list of included text-dependent questions. Finish the class with the provided writing assignment, which asks learners to use textual...

Make a study of Timothy and his development as a character over the course of the first half or so of The Cay. This idea focuses in particular on chapters 10 through 12. Learners start out by working on double-entry journals created in...

Guide your learners step by step through the process of designing an original, independent student project. This resource includes a wealth of worksheets and materials, including student project checklists, timelines, primary and...