Go directly to the teaching resource that accompanies the PBS series "Benjamin Franklin: An Extraordinary Life, An Electric Mind" to find eight lesson plans that support the study of Benjamin Franklin and his place in history. Lessons...

This lesson in the Animal Farm unit focuses on George Orwell, literary terms, and the Russian Revolution. It provides links to biographies of Orwell including text and video, links to literary terms fitting to Animal Farm, and links to...

This lesson plan focuses on the steps for preparing a speech including choose a topic, analyze the audience, gather materials and evidence, develop a thesis, support ideas, organize and outline the speech, draft the speech, prepare to...

This instructional activity focuses on plagiarism including the different forms of plagiarism, avoiding plagiarism when using the Internet, don't copy and paste, and the likelihood of being caught.

Guide to Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, including historical information, author biography, discussion questions, and a ten-lesson unit of study with handouts, project ideas, and essay topics. A radio show, with transcripts,...

This lesson plan focuses on selecting a speech topic including the importance of choosing a good topic by considering your areas of expertise and areas of interest, brainstorming, tips for choosing a topic, and narrowing the topic to fit...

This lesson focuses on three basic types of persuasive speeches: fact, value, and policy and information about each. It also provides questions you should ask yourself when analyzing a speech.

This lesson focuses on using logical appeals in persuasive speeches including inductive and deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning and associative reasoning, forming a rational appeal, and errors in reasoning-formal and informal.

This lesson focuses on motivational appeals and what motivates people including a list of 16 basic motivators, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and Monroe's motivated sequence.

This lesson focuses on supporting materials including types of supporting materials and how to effectively incorporate them into your presentation. W.9-10.2b Strong Support, W.11-12.2b Topic/support/aud

This lesson focuses on using narratives or stories in speeches. It discusses the importance of stories, the power of storytelling, and how and when to use stories in speeches.

This lesson focuses on the introduction to your speech. It includes the role of the introduction, strategies for the opening, getting attention and interest, establishing credibility, self-presentation, and introducing the topic, thesis,...

This lesson focuses on transitions including their importance in a speech, types of transitions, how to use transitions, internal previews, and internal summaries.

This lesson focuses on understanding the language, both verbal and non-verbal, of your speech. It discusses the importance of language, word choice, purpose and audience, ways of thinking about language, venue and occasion, and delivery.

This lesson focuses on rhetorical devices and how to use them effectively in public speaking. These include alliteration, antithesis, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, personification, repetition and parallelism, and simile and metaphor.

This lesson focuses on answering questions after or during an informative speech including how to prepare for Q&A by anticipating questions and practicing with a friend or colleague and methods of receiving and answering the questions.