How does the point of view of Poe's protagonist in "The Tell-Tale Heart" contribute to the suspenseful tone? Help your middle schoolers identify the point of view in a literary work with this lesson, which goes on to discuss the...

How big is your foot? How long is your arm? How big is your mom’s hand? After learning how to measure body parts, young writers collect their observations into an illustrated book. Instructions for crafting a 3D Tim Foil Man are also...

Students closely read " To Build a Fire," to explore the use of narrative point of view and debate the distinction between knowledge and instinct. The elements of literary naturalism and how they relate to Jack London's work is examined...

Is it possible to tell a true war story? Tim O’Brien says that fiction is for “getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.” To get at the truth about war, class members examine primary source materials from the...

Students analyze what it is like to live in an African village. They locate Tanzania on a map and compare life there to life here in the United States. They write about the health issues in East Africa.

Here’s an interesting approach to the analysis of similar subjects in different mediums. Based on the methodology of Professor Jules Prown, learners apply his three stages (description, deduction, and speculation) to a painting and a...

Twelfth graders use computers and the Internet to research a specified area, word processors to prepare an essay, a digital camera, a video camera gather visuals, and a scanner to add visuals to a PowerPoint presentation as they discover...

Students engage an older adult in one-to-one contact. They develop communication skills that can be used in future interactions. They complete a handout and interview one older adult. They examine what society needs to do to help...

Here is a great way for learners to practice identifying sounds made by both short and long vowels. This instructional activity stresses the a_e=/A/ correspondence along with letterboxes. They read their spelled words, whole text...

Exercise phonemic awareness of the vowel /a/ to help children become successful readers. They connect spoken phonemes to written grapheme's and create a relationship between the vocal gesture of /a/ and its grapheme map in text and words.

Learners brainstorm all the possible scenarios that would help them tell a story in detail with the whole class and with partners. They create web outlines to create a name story and then illustrate it with creative grammar usage and...

Twelfth graders set up a formal table setting in their classroom. Individually, they identify the proper serving or eating utensil for the various courses of a meal. To end the lesson, they discuss and role-play proper table manners and...

Eighth graders select ordinary objects, determine their uses, and write poems about them. Once they select an object, they create a web about its uses to serve as an outline. Once they have written their own odes, 8th graders meet in...

Pairs use desktop publishing software, as well as digital video and camera equipment, to craft a book review. These reviews are then shared with others in the school community through the class or school website.

An authentic and engaging way to practice literacy skills, this activity calls for young language arts pupils to conduct interviews with classmates and family members. First, pupils watch as the teacher models the interview process with...

Carl Sandburg composed poetry that conveyed a time and place in American Literature and history. Learners identify the literary techniques he uses to describe the historical and cultural context of living in Chicago. They define the...

Put your class in the shoes of someone - or something - else with this lesson, which encourages writers to keep a diary from the perspective of a living creature or an abstraction. Use Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm and the Six Trait...

Providing a wonderful way to explore reading and vocabulary skills, this resource takes your class on a journey to understand the accomplishments of Lewis and Clark through the eyes of their dog Seaman. It focuses on using the book Lewis...

Have your French classes mastered the conditional tense? This learning exercise contains four exercises to help assess the current level of your pupils. They review what other tenses the conditional can be used with in a sentence,...

A KWHL strategy prepares young readers for the different type of writing found in Kate Klise's story of the Dry Creek Middle School drinking fountain. Step-by-step directions, student and teacher copies of the KWHL template, and...

Although you could use this for any classroom, it was originally designed to be used in a high school advanced placement English course. Five questions about classroom learning and participation are presented. Give this to your class to...

Before continuing to read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, learners need to understand why and how this document was written. First, show and discuss a video from UNICEF to demonstrate the need for such a document. Then...

The last instructional activity in this unit about human rights consists of a final assessment. To demonstrate the skills your class has acquired throughout this unit, they will work with a new article entitled "From Kosovo to the United...

Making inferences can be a tricky proposition for middle schoolers. In the lesson presented here, pupils practice the skill of drawing a conclusion and making a judgment - which are what making an inference is all about! There are five...