Upper grade and middle school writers study the art of parody. In this language arts instructional activity, learners study the work of Lewis Carroll, read and discuss parodies from the book, Alice in Wonderland, and construct their own...

Students describe and discuss reasons that slaves were treated with indignity. While reading passages from the author Olaudah Equiano, students stop periodically to discuss major points about The Middle Passage. They investigate...

Students review the causes of slavery, the Middle Passage, triangular trade and the spread of slavery throughout colonies. They work in small groups and search documents in order to find the answers to a question and document packet.

Do you like astronomy? Engage your learners with this short reading passage about a boy who loves studying stars and space. After completing the reading, your middle schoolers will complete five simple recall questions. Perhaps you can...

'Tis not easy to understand the language of the Bard! But, hark! Fret not! With the assistance of this joyous instructional activity, young players learn how to translate Shakespeare's English into modern language. Groups examine...

Narrative or expository? That is the question readers face on a two-part comprehension instructional activity that asks kids to read a short passage about these two different types of writing, and then to answer a series of comprehension...

Practice using context clues with a activity about making inferences. Five prompts encourage kids to interpret where each event takes place based on the details in each passage.

Work on identifying text structure with this thorough worksheet. After studying a diagram depicting six different text structures (compare/contrast, spatial, chronological, problem and solution, cause and effect, and order of...

Middle schoolers read a novel and discuss character personality. First, they analyze a character in a novel and keep a chart or web of the character's identity, which includes specific examples from the book. They then write a script...

Middle schoolers read a passage from Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Avonlea and identify three details from the passage that show Anne is nervous as she faces her learners for the first time.

New Deal programs are the focus of an activity that prompts middle and high schoolers to consider the end of the Great Depression. Groups examine primary source materials to gain an understanding of how these programs were...

Identify the author's organizational pattern for expressing ideas. After reading an article on the California Gold Rush, middle schoolers determine the author's purpose for writing a passage of informational text. A full list of...

Middle and high schoolers identify how to discover a word's meaning by exploring context clues and any pictures, diagrams, photographs, and charts that might be included. They continue this process with other examples and locate one on...

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...

What kinds of questions could be asked with different pieces of literature? Use QAR questions to help your middle schoolers develop the skills to find information in a text. Thorough directions, a text excerpt, and a set of reading...

Story chains connect literary concepts, reinforce context clues, and even help learners predict what's coming next! Using words from the next chapter of Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons, middle schoolers craft story chains to...

Examine conflicting viewpoints in this lesson, in which middle schoolers write their own proposal for including a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. As a class, they discover how the Bill of Rights was not a planned document to be...

Are you looking for a way to teach sequence of events in your narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson to your middle school class, as it prompts young writers to create a narrative sequence map of events that have happened at school...

Develop reading skills in your middle school classroom with this short reading passage. Consider assigning your class a reading strategy to practice as they read the selection. Ten reading comprehension and vocabulary-in-context...

Each one of the learners in your class has a story to tell, so help them learn the most efficient and organized way to tell their tale. A thorough unit on narrative writing addresses the writing process, grammar, story structure,...

Want your class to digest text more thoroughly? Middle schoolers learn about the digestive system in the lesson and reinforce informational text reading skills through a variety of strategies. They engage in a close reading...

Here is a lesson which describes a lab activity in which a rat is dissected, and its heart is studied. The lesson has ample background information about three of the rats internal systems, and excellent lab sheets that support the...

How does Oliver Twist, the novel written by Charles Dickens, compare with its screenplay adaptation? Although the activity doesn't require learners to have read the novel, the similarities and differences of the highlighted passages...

Middle schoolers take a close look at the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation system. They study how the Army Corps of Engineers built and monitor the system. Learners discover how a lock and a dam work, and study three benefits of...