What happens when a tenuous grasp on sanity begins to slip? Compare Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and Emily Dickinson's "I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain" with a lesson plan focused on developing a common central idea. High...

Say precisely what you mean. Scholars analyze the importance of Washington's precise language in paragraphs eight and nine of the "Atlanta Compromise" speech. They interpret his figurative language and add it to their Idea Tracking...

Readers closely examine paragraph nine in Du Bois's "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" to understand prejudice's meaning and research Jim Crow laws.

Address annotation, word choice, and tone in the same language arts instructional activity. Ninth graders read a section of Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" and track character development based on supporting...

Why is Romeo and Juliet considered a tragedy? Class members conclude their reading of the play, focusing on the final lines of Act 5, scene 3. They also consider how Shakespeare structures the text, orders events, and manipulates time to...

Who is to blame for Bernie Madoff's crime? Class members look for evidence Diana B. Henriques uses in The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust to support her claims that we share the responsibility with Madoff.

The capitalization rules are strict and inflexible—until you experience the fluid beauty of an Emily Dickinson poem. Ninth graders test their existing knowledge of language arts conventions with the many bent grammar rules in "I Felt a...

How can good study habits set someone up for a successful career? Learners explore the relationship between study skills and job skills in the fourth installment of a five-part college and career readiness lesson plan series. The group...

Close readers and forensic detectives alike deal with collecting strong evidence. Ninth graders become involved in an instructional activity about Sophocles' Oedipus the King, in which they find connections between Oedipus' stated words...

As the first in a two-part, end-of-unit assessment that encourages readers to synthesize the unit's main ideas, class members review their notes for each of the three texts they read and develop three open-ended discussion questions...

Writers complete editing and polishing the final draft of their research paper and submit the document for assessment.

Foster's Rule? Allopatric speciation? After watching West of the West's documentary Island Rotation, class members use Venn diagrams to compare endemic species on the Channel Islands with mainland related species. They then create a...

Most want to attend college, but do they know where? How will they afford it? How do they apply? Learners discover the costs associated with college and the best way to budget and possibly apply for financial aid. 

Here is lesson 9 in an extensive series on teaching and learning ASL. Discuss code switching, numerical incorporation, and noun based vocabulary. Then, click on the blue links to view ASL in action. Each link takes you to a printable...

Students investigate the controversial planned mosque at Ground Zero. In this current events lesson, students watch 3 public service announcement clips sponsored by the Council on American Islamic Relations and discuss their...

"No!" Accepting a "No" response and handling rejection appropriately can be a challenge. After reviewing the previous activity on asking for what they want, class members role-play appropriate ways of responding when their request has...

Root for your pupils to learn about roots. Young mathematicians first review the meaning of squares and square roots. They then use this knowledge to simplify square roots of monomials with variables.

Eighth graders consider cross-curricular connections between social studies, singing, and current events. They listen to the song, "I Can't Cry Hard Enough." view scenes from September 11, then create presentations using images, a...

Count with ten frames in a first grade addition lesson. Kids determine how to identify numbers on a number line, as well as with ten frames, and complete ten frames to show their answers in several addition problems.

How do you apply the traditional division algorithm to polynomials? Here is an Algebra II lesson that extends the use of the division algorithm to polynomials. After establishing the concept of long division, synthetic division and the...

What was the most significant tool used by the Chumash? How did the environment make the tool possible? What group behaviors allowed the Chumash be be successful for thousands of years? After watching West of the West's documentary Once...

How much intervention is appropriate for America to take in cases of human rights violations? Class members ponder a question that has lingered since the birth of America with a series of primary sources that reflect the degree to which...

The options are vast with this Ancient Greece and Olympics research project! Using Scholastic online resources, historians have interactive and educational supports to guide them through researching and writing about the 2004 Olympics in...

Every good novel needs a solid beginning! Setting the stage can have your budding authors stumped, so use this lesson to get them thinking. After examining the plot rollercoaster image (included) they consider the four places...