Explore text structure with a focus on the glossary feature in informational texts. Learners read a brief introduction before examining a glossary from a text about plants. They reference it while completing four comprehension questions....

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...

Words carry baggage. In addition to their literal, denotative meaning, words also carry the weight of the associations and connotations attached to the word—the connotations of words writers use to create the tone of a piece. An...

Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death" provides high schoolers with an opportunity to practice their critical thinking skills. They examine the images, diction, rhythm, and rhyme scheme the poet uses and consider how...

As part of a group of lessons, your class will return to the primary text for this unit, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Key vocabulary as well as close reading strategies continue to be the focus skills; however, this lesson...

Delve deep into a Greek roots study with this graphic organizer. Scholars identify and define everyday words that are made from the Greek roots ast, bio, geo, and graph. 

Can colors help to convey a mood in writing? Explore this question with your class using the songs "Grey Street" by the Dave Matthews Band and "Blu is a Mood" by Blu Cantrell. After analyzing the effect of the color words in these songs...

We know that sample data varies — it's time to quantify that variability! After calculating a sample mean, pupils calculate the margin of error. They repeat the process with a greater number of sample means and compare the results.

Encourage your class to use a variety of strategies to learn and retain vocabulary words. The plan suggests that near the beginning of your reading of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead pupils should find words in the text that are...

Individually, words have power, but when added together, they can take on a whole other level of meaning. Readers learn about compound words in the 10th of 17 lessons of the Word Recognition and Fluency series. A script provides guidance...

Explore the paradox of the universe - or, at least, of popular music - with this lesson. Using the songs "Inaudible Melodies" by Jack Johnson and "She" by Green Day, your class will complete a graphic organizer to help them understand...

If you're tired of defining allusion, onomatopoeia, and satire for your language arts students, hand out a complete list of literary devices to keep the terms straight. Each term includes a definition that is easy to understand and...

A continuation of the previous lesson, which is part of a larger group of lessons on human rights (see additional materials). Here, in Lesson 7, your class will explore more articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After...

Show your classes how different means can represent the same data. Individuals collect household size data and calculate the mean. Pupils learn how handling of the data influences the value of the mean. 

This lesson is so beneficial it makes any teacher's heart skip a beat! After readers identify words from Words by Heart, they break down unknown vocabulary with a handout detailing various prefixes and suffixes. Once they finish...

Lesson 6 of this extensive unit finally has your class begin to work their way through specific articles from the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Before examining the rights actually detailed in the...

Grow vocabulary skills with an understanding of affixes and word roots. Included here are a few activities and plenty of materials you can use to support your learners as the focus on building vocabulary.

That is very unexpected! Scholars take a close look at the word unexpectedly from chapter three of The Lightning Thief. They examine the prefix and think of other words that have the same prefix. Learners regroup in their triads and take...

The square root of five and five do not have the same value! How many times have you addressed this with math classes? A lesson gives an explanation of a square root and gives examples for simplifying square root...

Sad, depressed, miserable, inconsolable, forlorn: so many synonyms have a lot of variety with their connotations. Through the guided imagery activity, writers explore the use of connotation and its influence on imagery and description by...

Middle schoolers get hip to the jive with a lesson about slang. They closely examine examples of slang and use context clues to infer the meaning of the terms. Groups read and summarize an article about a teacher who created a Gen Z...

Most think Elijah in Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis gets famous for being the first African American child born free from slavery. However, his true fame comes from his adventures to capture a thief. Readers study...

Class members work to translate the Declaration of Independence into their own words, as well as design a Facebook page within the context of 1776 to raise public awareness about the document and its meaning for citizens.

Common Core testing on your mind? Ease your class into the test by requiring pupils to take this practice test. The focus of this test is reading. Learners read several passages, both literary and informational, and respond to multiple...