Use the Internet to expand the audience for portfolio writings and motivate young writers to edit their work. Have your class members select a piece of writing from their portfolios to be polished and published on the World Wide Web....

Practice being concise. Exercise your vocabulary. Improve your editing skills. The contention in this lesson plan is that by imposing a 140 character limit, the Twitter format actually helps improve writing skills. And of course class...

Students organize daily news with this journaling activity.

Students complete a variety of discussion and writing activities surrounding the study of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

Students exoplore the world of imaginary creatures (dragons, unicorns, etc.) They discuss the creature's special attributes and read stories about them. They create their own magical creatures in the form of puppets.

Sixth graders review three sample sentences in order to identify sentence structure, and to practice how to edit sentences appropriately. They work with a partner to define a run-on sentence and identify three ways to correct it. They...

Do you like cheese? What sound does the word start with? Learn all about the /ch/ sound and what other words make the same sound. 

Pupils are given the preset graphic organizer using "Kidspiration". They create a graphic organizer about them and then use the graphic organizer to write their personal narrative.

First graders will be creating and filling in a graphic organizer using Kidspiration, as a pre-writing activity for their short story piece. They then use their graphic organizers to write their entire short story. Once written, the...

Fourth graders explore the migration to Texas from other parts of the United States. Through journal entries they write about the trip as if they were the settlers coming to a new and foreign country. Working in small groups, 4th graders...

In this comprehension check worksheet, students respond to 12 short answer questions covering chapter 5 of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.

For this Animal Farm comprehension check worksheet, students respond to 5 short answer questions and define 5 terms pertaining to chapter 3 of Animal Farm by George Orwell in order to help them better understand the novel.

In this Durango Street comprehension check worksheet, students define 2 vocabulary words and respond to 5 short answer questions pertaining to chapter 9 of Durango Street in order to help them better understand the novel and the author's...

I love Faulkner, his experimental style and stream of consciousness are so exciting. Your learners can analyze William Faulkner and his novel, The Sound and the Fury by defining his place in American literary history and exploring...

Using Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and Hart Crane's The Bridge as models, class groups first craft their own epic poems for 1900 and, using primary sources, create a multi-media presentation that captures the sights and...

Sixth graders discover the importance of information sources by researching the United States History.  In this research gathering lesson plan, 6th graders examine a historical painting of George Washington and analyze what it...

Students explore the words of Abraham Lincoln. In this Abraham Lincoln lesson, students analyze segments of "The Gettysburg Address," his annual address to Congress in 1862, and his letter to Mrs. Bixby. Students conduct further research...

Elementary schoolers read the Firebird reading list of fantasy and complete discussion questions about fantasy. In this fantasy books lesson plan, learners read a list of books and pick one to read.

There is nothing more frustrating than discussing theme in literature, and now the Common Core requires that your learners determine two or more, and discuss the development of it throughout the text. This is crazy, but manageable with...

Eighth graders discuss how communication, or lack thereof, can have either a favorable or detrimental effect on a community. They study and interpret proverbs as a means of teaching a lesson. Finally they discuss symbolism and design a...

Students recognize and compare symbols and their meanings on a mummy case with those in students' everyday lives.

Students examine lives of Native Americans in order to become familiar with contributions to and influences on American society particularly, but not exclusively, in the Western region of the United States. Students focus on cultural...

Young scholars use a teacher-made museum guide with questions that allow them to analyze and compare the patron art of seventeenth-century France with portraits of later periods at the Joslyn Art Museum. Students also read The Little...

Students watch a video and slides to view Keith Haring's work of 3 dimensional forms based on 2 dimensional imagery. For this 3 dimensional forms lesson plan, students analyze symbols and discuss lines, sound, movement, and emotions.