Does money seem to slip through your middle schoolers' fingers? Encourage them to examine spending, saving, and budgeting habits with a unit on consumer skills and money management. Young spenders study the waste that occurs with school...

Encourage middle schoolers to be proficient and knowledgeable in the economic world with a series of personal finance lessons. Focusing on banking, credit, budgets, and investing, the activities guide learners through financial...

The most effective way to support an argument is with clear and relevant evidence. As seventh graders read and listen to Cesar Chavez's California Commonwealth Club Address, they work through five sections of a textual analysis unit,...

A 55-page unit examines the novel, The BFG, by Roald Dahl. Six lessons pay close attention to friendship, dreams, and believing themes while analyzing interesting characters, writing creative vocabulary, smilies, metaphors, an exciting...

Improve your fifth graders' persuasive writing skills in four weeks. Working independently, in peer editing groups, and with instruction, writers work over the 17 sessions to craft an argumentative essay. They craft a...

Sorry, Charlie. Scholars take a close look at Apology by Plato. Activities analyzing the text help pupils understand, make, organize, and write about claims. Learners work in groups, complete claim tools, and evaluate thinking by filling...

Young mathematicians put their skills to the test in the real world during this four-lesson consumer math unit. Whether they are learning how compound interest can make them millionaires, calculating the cost of remodeling...

Bully-free is the way every school should be! How can you help create that kind of culture in your school? A well-written teacher's guide containing lessons for grades 6-8 may be just the ticket. Each unit, separated by grade level,...

Stressed out? To begin a mental and emotional health unit, participants take a stress test to determine their level of stress. They study the effects of stress, identify sources of stress in their lives, and learn different ways to...

How did jazz influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Class members read some of Ellison's non-fiction writings about blues and jazz, listen to records, watch videos, and engage in student-centered discussions. They then produce podcasts...

Throughout 10 lessons, fourth graders learn how to plan, organize, write, and edit their own personal narratives. In the beginning, young writers come up with ideas of personal experiences and the emotions linked with those experiences....

Collections of data represented in stem and leaf plots are organized by young statisticians as they embark some math engaging activities.

Six diverse activities make up a substantial unit on the women's rights movement in the United States, past and present. A few of the topics at hand: the fourteenth and nineteenth amendments, the Equal Pay Act, the Lily Ledbetter Act,...

Collaborative groups examine the importance of energy resources on quality of life by researching different energy sources and alternative energy sources through data analysis. They make a comparison of different countries and cultures,...

Students recognize the difference between the city and the country. In this City Mouse, Country Mouse lesson, students listen to a story and describe and map differences between the city and the country. Students understand that people...

This tutorial focuses on argumentative and persuasive writing: it lists and defines the components of arguments, provides a flow chart for argumentative writing, defines counterarguments, and lists the 3 elements of persuasion: ethos,...

Provides a number of questions that students can ask themselves about a literary passage when doing a "Close Reading" and following this with an organized piece of writing. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.5

Two slideshows and a screencast on organizational patterns used when writing essays and speeches. The first is a 20-slide presentation explaining the seven most common organizational patterns used in writing: time sequence, spatial,...

Learn about process analysis, writing procedurals texts, the steps of the writing process, and cause and effect in this unit. Also, examine patterns of organization in writing. A handy chart shows common organizational patterns which...

A series of six screencast lessons explaining the process of argumentative writing. The first [4 min. 22 sec.] focuses on overall structure and purpose. The second [6 mins, 18 secs] explains how to state a claim. The third [6 min. 3...

In this slideshow tutorial, students will review how to write an argument paper. Students will review the parts of the argument paper, which include the thesis, claim, support, and counterarguments. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.1, W.11-12.1a...

Excellent site outlining each step for Internet research at the middle school and secondary levels. This site focuses on a variety of information literacy topics, from how to research, find and evaluate information, and cite sources....

This unit probes into the role political interest groups plays in both complicating and influencing public policy making in America. Offers video, readings, web resources, and activities.

NOVA Addiction is a film that explores the impact of the opioid epidemic on individuals and society, examines the neurobiology of opioid addiction, and discusses current harm reduction approaches and treatments and how they might be...