A well-designed, comprehensive, and attractive slide show supports direct instruction on how sonar and echolocation work. Contained within the slides are links to interactive websites and instructions for using apps on a mobile device to...

Discuss the work of Matthew Henson, an African American who traveled to the North Pole with Robert Peary. After reading the story "Matthew Henson" by Maryann N. Weidt, learners answer questions by drawing inferences and conclusions,...

Knock, knock, knock...Creep out your class with a critical thinking lesson focused on word relationships in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." They investigate  the relationship between word choice, mood, and interpretation of...

A cross-curricular activity combines poetry and history for your middle and high schoolers. The class critically examines Kipling's poem, "White Man's Burden" as historical evidence of the Imperialist ideology popular during his time....

After viewing clips from a documentary on factory work in China and US outsourcing, learners have a fishbowl discussion. They work in groups to build both personal points of view and strong arguments on the effects of outsourcing in...

Practice responding to controversial information with the New York Times lesson provided here. Middle schoolers watch a video interview with the director of The Lost Tomb of Jesus. After reading a companion article, they identify...

Why were laws created? Spark a group discussion on why we need laws to co-exist. Should the sale of some things be outlawed on Sundays? Read a case summary between Target and the state of Minnesota that debated this issue. Ask your...

Young historians compare and contrast differences in the laws that regulated the activities of slaves and servants. They review and analyze a series of primary source documents to explain the social constructs related to slaves and...

You can prevent bullying in your classroom by addressing kindness, empathy, and acceptance with your littlest learners early on. After reading Don't Laugh at Me by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin, kids discuss the ways that words...

Augment your eighth grade language arts curriculum with a thorough set of reading comprehension activities and assessments. Focusing on a variety of skills, including vocabulary in context, text structure, main idea, and author's style,...

The world is full of possibilities for your ELLs. Help them explore their career options with a lesson that incorporates Internet research and expository writing. Not only will they learn more about their careers of choice, but both...

"How can a magazine reflect a particular time and culture?" Using this prompt, your class explores the Victorian Era as it relates to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. They can also play the "Victorian Women's Rights" game for the year 1840...

Should driver's licenses be granted to unauthorized immigrants? That is the question class members grapple with in a lesson that asks them to first read a fact sheet that details the arguments for and against licensing unauthorized...

Hamlet has an unusual take on the criminal justice system when he decides to determine his uncle's guilt by staging a play. With the resource, scholars continue analyzing Hamlet's third soliloquy from Act 2.2 of Shakespeare's Hamlet....

What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...

Class pairs select a prompt from a provided list and tell (and record) their story to their partner. They then examine linguist William Labov's model for natural narratives, and apply his model to their tale. Next, class members watch...

What skills do employers look for in potential employees? Introduce scholars to the skills that pay the bills during the second of six career and college readiness lesson plans. Once they have defined critical 21st-century skills, groups...

Establish healthy eating habits with a instructional activity focused around MyPlate's food recommendations and the importance of eating fruits and vegetables. Through class discussion and worksheet completion, scholars discuss the best...

From minimum wage to minimizing injuries, young workers need to know their rights! The sixth and final lesson in a series of college and career readiness activities gets eighth graders thinking about safety and labor laws. 

Learners make several models of the solar system to learn the positions of the planets in the solar system as well as relative distances and sizes. Creation of these models will help them identify the planets by size, shape, color,...

As part of a study of the 1963 quest for civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama, class members view a PowerPoint that details the struggle and analyze Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

As an end-of-unit assessment, class members craft a formal, multi-paragraph essay identifying a similar idea found in Rainer Maria Rilke's collection, Letters to a Young Poet, and David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. Writers state and use...

How can a robot measure the length of something when we don't know how far the camera is from the object? The lesson explains the concept of perspective and many others. Scholars apply this knowledge to judge the length of fish and the...

Building on the previous discussion of the supplemental reading article "Where Sweatshops Are a Dream," class members use the provided Evaluating Argument and Evidence Tool to identify the claims and evidence Nicholas Kristof uses to...