Walking in nature is the theme of a unit designed to support English language development lessons. Scholars look, write, speak, and move to explore topics such as camping, woodland animals, instruments,...

Support young scholars' oral language development with the use of four early childhood activities. To reinforce proficiency, pupils read with an adult, play a game of telephone with their peers, put on a play with puppets or stuffed...

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....

You could spend a full day discussing The Phantom of the Opera and not scratch the surface, but a set of lessons about the literary elements and themes of the musical production is a great start. Young thespians build upon 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...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson plan on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how...

Put together an English language arts unit on the six traits of writing with this helpful collection of resources. From fun songs to differentiated writing exercises reinforcing each of the traits, great ideas are provided for...

Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....

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...

Scholars test their skills of reading body language with a collaborative learning experience that focuses on showing and identifying emotions. Pairs take turns acting out an emotion, one uses body language while the other guesses what...

Yo! Check it out. Here's a lesson on formal and informal language. And the packet includes a game. What fun!

Being a good listener is key to building and maintaining positive relationships. Use this lesson as a way to help children connect with others by becoming active listeners and improving their listening skills.

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...

Tap into the wisdom and knowledge of older members of the community with this New York Times plan. To warm up, learners write about and discuss advice they have been given. After reading "The Life Report," an op-ed column that asks older...

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...

Give your class this introductory activity to spark interest in the Japanese language. Learners look at the Japanese vowels and practice their pronunciation. Then the class works to match vocabulary words to their visual representation.

Immerse yourself in the beautiful, twisted world of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. A detailed lesson plan provides important details about the writing, stagecraft, music, and literary elements of the famous musical,...

Explore the works of Dr. Seuss, such as Horton Hears a Who, Horton Hatches and Egg, The Sneetches and Other Stories, The Lorax, The Butter Battle Book, and Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. Each story lesson includes reading...

Building upon prior lessons in the series, this reading and writing exercise requires pupils to look back at their own writing, track character development in the novel The Cay, and analyze how Phillip has changed. The reading focus is...

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 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...

A repetition poem is the focus of a lesson that challenges scholars to compose an original piece. To add meaning to their poem, authors choose words to repeat at the start of most lines.  

Need some ideas for poetry lessons? Check out this packet loaded with suggestions for elementary, middle, and high school writers.

After examining winning entries to the Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku Competition, young poets try their hand at this fixed form.