Curated OER
Junior High School Lesson Plan
Students play a board game in order to review the details from a travel essay. In this board game lesson, students listen the a story about a trip, ask questions regarding it, and review the story by playing the board game on the...
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A VIEW FROM THE TOP
Students explore the idea of aerial photography through the story of Amelia the Pigeon. They view an actual aerial photograph of their school or home, and then write a story describing what Amelia would see if she flew over their school...
National First Ladies' Library
Finding Treasure Island; An Exciting Escape
Students read Treasure Island. They have a choice of a number of activities associated with the novel, including writing a review of the book. Students also participate in a National Geographic High Seas Adventure, going on an Internet...
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Comic Renditions
Young scholars explore the intersection between popular and high art by recreating comic strips in various artistic styles and then famous works of art as comics. Through this exploration, students come to conclusions about what art is...
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An Analysis of Jim Crow Laws and their Effects on Race Relations
First graders analyze the role of the Jim Crow laws on race relations. As a class, they are segregated based on the color shirt they have or some other simple criteria and wear either a square or circle sticker representing the majority...
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Breaking the Chains: Rising Out of Circumstances
Study history through photographs. In this visual arts and history lesson, young scholars learn to analyze photographs to discover details about life during the Civil War era. Students write journal entries as if they are the...
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Rock Art Around the World
Students analyze rock art. In this rock art lesson, students research cultures that created rock art, analyze their art pieces, and compose essays regarding their findings.
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Becoming a "Gringo" Immigrants, Language Learning and Acculturation
High schoolers examine the experience by immigrants coming to America who are Spanish-speaking. As a class, they define "Gringo" and read poems whose authors first language is Spanish. In groups, they participate in different sections...
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Four Year Plan Essay
Pupils complete a personal vision, a four year plan essay, meant to stimulate their thinking process. They set a foundation for what they hope to strive for in the next four years to come.
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Cyberbullying: Effects on Teens Across the Nation (Segment 3)
Free speech, privacy, and cyberbullying are the focus of a series of activities that prompt class members to engage in discussions about these interrelated topics. They view a segment from PBS’s series on bullying, read...
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Newspapers in the Digital Age
Is journalism more or less reliable with the influx of Internet sources? Learners investigate the issues of freedom of speech, journalistic ethics, and social responsibility in the age of Twitter and Facebook. After examining the...
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Reading Comprehension: Test-taking version
In this reading comprehension worksheet, young scholars explore and analyze test taking techniques, read a short story and then answer eight comprehension questions.
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Plagiarism: Avoiding Accidental Internet Plagiarism
Demonstrate how to cite information from Internet sources without plagiarizing. If your class is working on an Internet research paper, and you have observed learners cutting and pasting directly from the Internet, the activities and...
Curated OER
Synonyms and Antonyms
Mix up your writing lessons by having kids look at recent newspaper articles instead of their own work. They work in pairs and rewrite sports news articles using synonyms and antonyms for a set number of words. Then they share their work...
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Composition in Journals
Carlos Fuentes’s The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait and Jaspre Bark’s Journal of Inventions: Leondardo da Vince serve as models for an assignment that asks class members to create a personal journal they will use...
My Access
“Banning Books” Lesson Plan
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,...
Teaching Channel
Storyboard Lesson Plan
Good books are accessible through a variety of literary lenses. To consider how the same story can be seen in different lights, groups develop a storyboard for a movie teaser that would focus on one of six concepts found in Suzanne...
Curated OER
Creating Interesting Characters
What makes a story interesting? Complex characters! As part of a series of worksheets that prepares middle schoolers to write their own novel, the exercises included explain the role of the protagonist, the antagonist, and the supporting...
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Interaction as Analysis: Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is a thing with feathers” is the focus of a series of activities that model for learners how close reading can lead to understanding. The whole class plays with the metaphor, groups talk about the author’s...
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Writing Fables
Students write their own fables. In this writing fables instructional activity, students use handheld computers to write a fable. The class designs a spreadsheet to organize common elements of fables. Students also edit each others' work.
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Are You Listening?
To underscore the importance of practicing good listening skills class members engage in a series of activities that model poor listening skills. In pairs and then as a whole group, class members enact different, more positive techniques...
Institute for Humane Education
I've Been Branded!
How many pairs of Nikes® or Apple® products are in the average American home? What makes someone buy one particular type of laundry detergent over another? Scholars grapple with these questions as they develop a list of brands they use...
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Say Hi to Haibun Fun
Students examine the Japanese writing form of Haibun. They identify the elements of Japanese prose and poetry, analyze a haibun for writing devices, complete a graphic organizer, and compose an original haibun as a form of journal keeping.
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Put the Title of the Lesson Here
Eighth graders write a Compare and Contrast essay comparing the lives of similarly aged students at different Latitudes. They share their essays with epals, via e-mail. They may include digital photographs in their correspondence as well.