Review with your young learners what opposites are and use a fun tag board game called Auntie Alice to practice. After the class plays the game, pairs work on computers practicing with interactive matching/flashcards/concentration games...

Choosing a poet or a theme, eighth graders conduct research in the world of poetry. They conduct Internet research and select five poems that fit their poet or theme, and create a seven slide PowerPoint presentation on their selected...

Lead your class on a journey to the planet Jupiter and provide them with fun facts in the process. Learners explore radio waves emitted by Jupiter to further understand how this data helps our daily lives. They conclude by discussing...

Take advantage of Banned Book Week to pique students' interest and get them reading! Create a classroom display of previously banned books and allow each member of your class to choose one to read. After they have read their book, get...

“Rikki-tikki-tavi” provides an opportunity to model for readers how to use background information to enrich understanding of a story. Class members observe animal behavior, listen to biographical background on Rudyard Kipling, study...

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

Invite your learners to discover the efforts of Night author Elie Wiesel to promote awareness of genocide in the world. After watching and reading an interview of Elie Wiesel, high schoolers work to create a living Holocaust...

A 13-page packet introduces high schoolers to a lady of amazing firsts. Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman elected to Congress, the first Black woman to run for President of the United States, and a leader of the Women's Rights...

Useful for literary analysis, citing textual evidence, or summary skills, this lesson about the Kumeyaay Indians would be a good addition to your language arts class. Middle schoolers read novels and summarize the literature in their own...

Students explore motion by observing the movement of people and duplicating those movements. They compare and contrast various kinds of movements and identify different types of movements in pictures. They build an object that can be...

Explore Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in this literature analysis lesson. Middle schoolers read and summarize the plot of the story. They then adapt passages for a contemporary audience and analyze the...

Does your ELA class need some practice with the specific skills outlined in the Common Core standards? Then this is the perfect resource for you! One in a series of connected lessons that cover the standards for reading literature,...

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

Put your thinking cap on, it's quiz time! Here, scholars use their knowledge of the book, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi to create six questions to be used in their upcoming quiz. 

Are video games sports? Pupils investigate this question as well as various nonfiction selections to learn more about claims and the support that defines them. All of the selections mimic the rigor on state tests and encourage close...

Maybe dark clouds do have a silver lining. Just when Percy from The Lightning Thief thought of his life as doomed, he learned that his father is a Greek god. Scholars work through activities as they read how his life took a drastic...

If only all best friends could be like Lassie! Lassie Come-Home offers a glimpse of the special relationship between man's best friend and a beloved owner. Scholars complete worksheet activities while reading about Lassie's...

Sibling rivalry or all-out war? The Lemonade War tells the story of a brother and sister who begin a competition selling lemonade. Scholars read to find out who will win. The resource includes vocabulary words, comprehension questions,...

Should the excavation of what is believed to be the cave of the Lone Woman of San Nicholas Island be allowed to continue? As a practice exercise designed to prepare pupils for a timed writing exam, individuals read two Los Angeles...

Many people dream of getting a fresh start or starting over again. David, a main character in I am David, gets that chance and must learn to live life outside of the concentration camp. Scholars read about David's adventures as they...

If the walls could talk, you might hear Hugo from The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Hugo lives in the walls of a train stations in Paris. Scholars read and complete worksheet activities as they discover Hugo's secrets. They show their...

Everyone wants to feel like they belong. James, in James and the Giant Peach, finds a feeling of belonging in a very odd place—inside a peach! Scholars read the story of James and the Peach and work through vocabulary, language, and...

Blood may not always be thicker than water. Julie, in Julie of the Wolves, soon depends on a wolf pack to be her family. Scholars read about Julie's adventures as they complete sentences with vocabulary words, answer comprehension...