Immaculate, accumulation, dissipation. Vocabulary drawn from chapter 16 of James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, can prove to be challenge for readers. To help kids understand the meaning of these words and what they add to the...

"Everybody is guilty of something." As class members continue their close reading of Walter Mosley's essay, they examine how Mosley develops and supports his central ideas about Western civilization's relationship to guilt.

Class members read "Satyagraha," the concluding section of Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, and analyze how the authors support their claim that terrible...

Give me a W! Give me an O! Give me a W! What does it spell? Wow! Teach youngsters how to write letters and numbers with colorful tracing activities that include encouraging audio and make writing enjoyable. Soon, they will be writing...

Magnus takes a visit to the classroom in the 20th chapter of Matilda. Or does he? After reading, learners interview the person in the hot seat to get a detailed account of what happened during this chapter. Then, they write individual...

The I-STOP law was designed to regulate the distribution and tracking of prescription drugs. After reading an article about its signing and implementation, middle and high schoolers work together to come up with their own ideas for an...

Working in groups, learners practice using gerunds as subjects by talking to one another. Then, independently, they write sentences using a subject, a verb, and a subject complement from a given list of each and in their own words. They...

The only way that a heinous act of genocide can succeed is if citizens of surrounding groups and countries turn their backs on those suffering. A thorough language arts module addresses shared central ideas with three separate units,...

Young scholars examine the sequence of events that led up to the annexation of Texas to the United States. They create a timeline of significant events, analyze primary source letters from this time period, and write a letter from the...

The Giraffe Heroes Program is designed for teens willing to stick their necks out to make a difference, and to create community service projects that tackle real world problems. The resource guides teens to choose an issue,...

Anna McMullen's opinion piece "Bangladesh Factory Collapse: Who Really Pays for our Cheap Clothes?" offers readers another opportunity to examine how writers craft and support their arguments. After reading McMullen's article, class...

Come prepared for your next Back-to-School Night with an organized and informative presentation for your parents. Here you'll find a sample PowerPoint that includes such highlights as the teacher's homework expectations and...

How do humans affect ecosystems? Learners read two articles and interpret a graph to develop essays on the human impact on ecosystems. They read about human impact on tigers and manatees as a basis for their overarching papers.

What happens to the four little penguins sitting on the ice? Find out with a mini book that includes eight pages of illustrations and rhyming lines. Sure to delight the penguin lovers in your class!

Want your class to use critical thinking when discussing vocabulary? Go beyond the dictionary with a vocabulary activity based on Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. Kids write the word in the center of a graphic organizer that also provides...

Reinforce fraction instruction with an informative learning exercise equipped to provide independent practice, as well as guidance and modeling. Support is provided to boost proficiency in finding equivalent fractions, and adding,...

A puzzle isn't about the individual pieces, but how they work together. Scholars assemble a puzzle and discover missing pieces. They write a description of what they expect these pieces to look like, including as many details as...

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream takes center stage in an interactive designed for an audience of English learners. After watching a short animated version of the play, individuals read a printed version of the script, match the...

Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is the focus of an 11-page packet that includes three lesson plans, three worksheets, and a homework assignment. The first lesson introduces readers to the historical context of the novel. At the same time,...

After a brief discussion of their independent reading texts, pairs exchange their college narratives and, using the provided peer review tool, give their partner suggestions on how the draft may be improved.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores were both born in 1858, and both came to the Dakota territory in 1883, but they influenced the developing country of America in different ways. Elementary and middle schoolers apply written and...

Parades are a great way to celebrate. Get young historians into the festivities by asking them to create an informational float for a Freedom Parade. Picking a topic from the provided list or suggesting one of their own, class members...

As part of a study of how writers structure their text so that readers understand events, class members do a close reading of "Is It Lawful to Make Slaves of Others Against Their Will?" a chapter in Aronson and Budhos' Sugar Changed the...

Though beautiful, William Shakespeare's prose can be inhibiting for learners who are new to his works. A lesson based on The Tempest guides high schoolers through the paraphrasing process, including noting the subjects and verbs to...