Class members read "Satyagraha," the concluding section of Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, and analyze how the authors support their claim that terrible...

Frogs are the theme of a lesson plan that challenges scholars to examine photographs, read informational texts, then ask and answer questions. Scholars work collaboratelively as they rotate through stations, discuss their observations,...

What makes a good advocate? An informative lesson plan teaches class members how to advocate persuasively. They participate in a fishbowl activity and listen to the teacher model advocating persuasively. They then practice independently,...

Building on a previous lesson plan, readers continue using context clues to learn new vocabulary. Additionally, they continue working on their Gathering Evidence graphic organizers, making connections between an informational text and A...

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...

Paul Simon's "Father and Daughter" offers language learners and native English speakers an opportunity to study adverb, adjective, and noun clauses.

English language development lessons are brought to you in poems, picture cards, and grand discussions in a We Can Do It! themed unit. Topics of discussion include daily challenges, parts of a whole, words that describe what we...

How does an author's choice of artistic medium influence an audience? What about how an author chooses to transform original source material? These are the questions class members grapple with as they compare scenes from episode IV...

How important are sound effects in films? In stage plays? In radio programs? To gain an understanding of the impact of these special effects, class members watch a short video spoof of the sound in a scene from Star...

Class members compare the final 30 minutes of Lucas's Star Wars: A New Hope with Act V of Doescher's play, William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope and consider how the choice of media influences viewers' impression...

Of all the amendments found in The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment contains some of the most important freedoms for American citizens. A unit plan on the First Amendment features interactive lesson plans designed to teach about those...

Chances are, you've got some precocious Matilda fans in your class! Use a thorough set of lesson plans to address Roald Dahl's classic novel about a bright girl who just wants to be understood. Vocabulary exercises,...

Finding the central idea in a text is equally important in fiction and nonfiction. Work on analyzing a piece of writing for the central idea with Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," complete with supporting...

Finish Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with an instructional activity focusing on the story's conclusion. After participating in literary analysis discussions with small groups, ninth graders complete a Quick...

Young writers compose a gripping ending to their historical fiction narratives. Following the previous lesson plan, where learners wrote a bold beginning, class members examine exciting endings from a literary text. They then draft their...

After completing three body paragraphs of an argument essay about life's rules to live by from Bud, Not Buddy Christopher Paul Curtis, it's time to begin writing the introduction and conclusion. Independently, pupils draft the final two...

Readers analyze David Mitchell's techniques for introducing and developing the mystery surrounding Madame Crommelynck in the "Solarium" chapter of his novel Black Swan Green.

How does word choice influence the meaning and tone of a text? To answer this question, class members listen to a masterful reading of a passage from David Mitchell's Black Swan Green and then work with a partner to conduct a close...

Class members continue their discussion of David Mitchell's Black Swan Green, focusing on how the author uses the conversation between Jason and Madame Crommelynck to refine his central idea of the meaning of beauty.

Can a life gone wrong be blamed on a single childhood incident? Hundert, the narrator of "The Palace Thief," and readers struggle with this question as they ponder events in Ethan Canin's story.

Class members read the chapter, "Serfs and Sweetness" from Sugar Changed the World, and identify the central idea that the development of beet sugar and modern farming technology changed the reliance on the plantation system and made...

In "How We Researched and Wrote this Book," the final essay in Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, authors Aronson and Budhos discuss their research methods and purpose in writing the text....

How did the Demerara Rebellion of 1823, the death of Reverend John Smith, and the Emancipation Bill of 1833 that abolished slavery throughout the British Empire change the sugar industry? Class members examine how the authors of Sugar...

The Sugar Changed the World chapter, "The Sound of Liberty," highlights how the differing attitudes toward the slave trade shifted the issue from an economic concern to a concern for human rights. The passage contrasts Thomas Jefferson's...