Powerful orators make their messages compelling with a combination of factors. Learn how to be an inspirational speaker with a reading assessment activity that presents a list of persuasive speaking techniques, as well as two...

Looking for a performance assessment that asks individuals to demonstrate their competency in writing about informational text? Use Frederick Douglass' essay "On the Dred Scott Decision," and an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's 1857 speech...

As an assessment of their skill in crafting a compare and contrast essay, class members read and compare the portrayals of nature in excerpts from naturalist John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra and from poet Emily Dickinson's...

How do you assess whether pupils have mastered certain concepts and skills? Designing a performance task that asks learners to demonstrate their skills and providing writers with a rubric that identifies these skills and provides...

To demonstrate their ability to craft an analysis of informational text, class members read excerpts from James Madison's "The Federalist No. 10," from George Washington's Farewell Address, and from Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural...

Challenge writers to compose an essay detailing their stance on, and the history of, voting. Three assignments, each broken down into three parts, requires fifth graders to take notes, read and complete charts, write paragraphs, compare...

A three-part assessment challenges scholars to read informational texts in order to complete three tasks. Following a brief reading, class members take part in grand conversations, complete charts, and work in small groups to research...

A three-part assessment promotes reading comprehension skills. Class members read literary texts and take notes to discuss their findings, answer comprehension questions, write summaries, and complete charts. 

Scholars read excerpts from the story, Heidi, in a three-part assessment that focuses on comparing and contrasting characters. Each part contains three tasks that challenge learners to discuss, answer comprehension...

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...

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...

What do Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have in common? They're both billionaires, and neither one has a college degree! Using the website, scholars explore whether having a college education is truly worth the money it costs. They read...

Teach your class five reading strategies to help them with reading informational texts and literary texts. This packet, designed to help learners prepare for the CAHSEE, provides specific strategies that could be used to help prepare for...

With the focus on 21st century skills it is even more important that all teachers incorporate listening and speaking activities into their curriculum. Here's a packet of practical ideas appropriate for any classroom.

For this everyday editing worksheet, students correct grammatical mistakes in a short paragraph about artist Grant Wood. The errors range from capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar.

With the increasing emphasis on persuasive and argumentative writing, the lessons and strategies in the sample unit are sure to prove valuable—whether you are new to or an experienced pro at teaching persuasive reading and writing.

Speaking your mind and standing up for yourself is the message of Laurie Halse Anderson's novel Speak. Readers review key details about characters, setting, and plot points with a crossword puzzle all about Speak.

Shorten words with contractions. Second graders use apostrophes to shorten words, including harder ones like might not. Next, they write out the longer versions of various contractions. Have them write a story with these contractions for...

Looking for analogies? Here are 501.

In this reading comprehension worksheet, students explore and analyze test taking techniques, read a short story and then answer eight comprehension questions.

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...

Everyone loves a good prank! With this reading passage, Perla and her grandmother play some fun innocent pranks on one another. Kids focus on new vocabulary words, questions about the information they have read, and responding with their...

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...

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...