Help your future college graduates prepare for higher education with this series of lessons. High schoolers complete research projects about the colleges they would like to attend, and create PowerPoint presentations about their careers...

Candide is a dense text. To assist in analyzing Voltaire's satire, groups employ a cubing strategy based on Bloom's taxonomy. Complete directions for the strategy, a template for the cube, a worksheet, and a topic list are included. 

Round out your unit on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis with a series of reading comprehension questions. As kids read, they challenge each other to answer specific connection questions from the text.

After reading The Great Gatsby, groups return to the text and note passages where Fitzgerald uses symbols and color imagery in his narrative. They then develop a presentation that explains the context, the implications, and possible...

Pass the tea! Using the resource, scholars participate in a Tea Party protocol to analyze text and images about inventions that helped meet societal demands. After sharing their observations with each other, they discuss visual elements...

Students analyze text and maps in determining the effect the world's energy resources have on human society, and make charts illustrating at least three ways each resource makes life easier for human society.

The last instructional activity in this unit about human rights consists of a final assessment. To demonstrate the skills your class has acquired throughout this unit, they will work with a new article entitled "From Kosovo to the United...

What is a Socratic Seminar? Discover this type of discussion and it functions. Split the class into two groups with Group A sitting in an inner circle and Group B in an outer circle. Each person in Group B is assigned to a person in...

Although this vocabulary strategy would work in the context of any text, it's a piece of cake if you're reading Judi Barrett's book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Go over the terms they will hear so pupils are ready to...

Dinosaurs don't go to school...but what if they did? Use Jane Yolen's book How Do Dinosaurs Go To School to explore vocabulary in context. Find this on YouTube if you don't have the text on hand. These in-text words give some...

Combine counting and vocabulary in context using Jacqueline Rogers' Kindergarten Count to 100. Suggested words for this text are: first, fountain, salute, second, and third. By introducing the terms before reading the text,...

Do any of your budding readers have parents who work the night shift? Eileen Spinelli's book Night Shift Daddy, which can be found on YouTube if you don't have it, examines this family dynamic in a positive light and is an...

An activity based on the young adult novel Flipped, groups work to make the same difficult decision a character in the novel faces. Each group is given the same scenario about caring for a mentally disabled brother personally...

Before your high schoolers embark on the journey of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, provide them with this prereading activity. Independently, they respond to seven statements that connect with the novel. For example, they must decide if...

Examine different types of questions while studying Peter and the Starcatchers. After learning about the different types of questions, pupils read passages from the text, answer the questions, and label each question with its...

Use picture cues as a tool in order to create meaning along with text. With a wordless comic, young illustrators discuss the main idea and character traits, and independently write a summary for a page of a wordless comic. This strategy...

Who knew a state quarter could say so much? Alabama's quarter is embossed with an image of Helen Keller, pupils will use this image to think about what the phrase "Spirit of courage" means. They will use a graphic organizer to...

Barbara Joosse approaches an age-old question through an equally traditional culture in her story Mama, Do You Love Me?, which helps budding readers explore Native American vocabulary in context. Here you'll find...

Jump into traditional Chinese culture with budding readers as they examine vocabulary in context through Shirin Yim Bridge's book Ruby's Wish. This book is read on YouTube if you don't have it on hand. Scholars are briefly...

Experience the Los Angeles Riots through the eyes of a child in Even Bunting's poignant story Smoky Night. Use this text as you teach vocabulary in context, using comprehension questions to help scholars make connections to outside...

Need a prereading activity in line with the Common Core Standards for Language? Although designed for grades 11 and 12, the procedure detailed in this resource could be used with most grade levels. Prior to reading, select 20 – 25 words...

Prepare a gameboard and die-cut race cars to play a fun fluency game. Also create several flash cards to review the long /i/ sound. Then, model reading smoothly and with expression, emphasizing the importance of re-reading...

Upper graders read the book Holes as a class or by themselves. In groups, they identify symbols and discuss how they are connected  among the many plots in the story. They create a timeline in which they sequence the main...

Bring Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Mad Libs, and cloze activities to your college class with this instructional activity. They complete a cloze instruction activity in which the students choose words that would fill in the blanks and...