On June 26, 1963 President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech close to the Berlin Wall at the Rudolph Wilde Platz. On June 12, 1987 President Ronald Reagan Delivered his famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down...

Powerful orators make their messages compelling with a combination of factors. Learn how to be an inspirational speaker with a reading assessment activity that presents a list of persuasive speaking techniques, as well as two...

Is it crazy to fall in love with your own work, or is that the purest love of all? Compare two renditions of the classic Greek myth Pygmalion and Galatea with a literary analysis exercise. After students compare the similarities and...

Get ready to read The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 with a lesson about historical fiction. Spanning several centuries, the resource prompts learners to guess the historical era of a story based on a word or phrase...

As they read and discuss Chapter 7 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, class members continue to use the Tracking Tool worksheet to record evidence on how the central ideas are being developed.

The last activity in the series of five is a short one where individuals show what they've learned about the causes and effects of climate change. Working independently, they fill in a graphic organizer, then compare their notes with a...

Winter, spring, summer, and fall—Earth experiences them all! But what about Mars? Scholars compare the planets in terms of distance, tilt, and rotation during a lesson from PBS's Space series. Great visual models of Earth and Mars, plus...

Engage conversation and explore the journey as you challenge young readers to interpret the german folktale, "The Fisherman and His Wife" written by literary brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Capitalism, socialism, communism ... these may seem like a whole bunch of isms to your scholars. High schoolers won't  confuse them after completing an informative resource. Your class masters how to use primary sources to...

Take the opportunity to offer your young adults some important financial wisdom on the way taxes and inflation will affect their lives in the future. Through discussion and review of different real-world scenarios provided...

First and second graders explore writing conventions. They add question marks or periods to the end of teacher generated sentences on sentence strips. They locate punctuation marks in poems and write original sentences using appropriate...

Emerging readers practice reading fluency. First, they listen to the teacher and classmates model fluent reading, and then they practice fluent oral reading with a partner. To close the day, they participate in a Reader's Theatre based...

This James and the Giant Peach worksheet provides 15 short answer questions and extension activities. They address characterization, basic reading comprehension, making personal connections to the reading, and more. The...

Students, referring to the alphabet and numbers, practice stating, reading and writing letters and numbers. As they write each letter and number they say each one as well. They find examples of each one in a newspaper or magazine ad.

Outlines are a great asset to essay planning. Scholars read and analyze a model essay about the importance of daily reading and consider how it would look in an outline format. Next, they outline their own informative essays about rules...

The answer is blowin' in the wind. Using the resource, scholars read and analyze a model essay about wind power. Next, they work in groups to write an introductory paragraph that expresses an opinion about the topic. 

After reading on the topic of their paper, high schoolers work in pairs to assess how to write powerful, precise thesis statements. The introduction contains three statements: a universal statement, a bridge statement, and a thesis...

Ready, set, write! Scholars work on the end-of-unit assessment by completing a writing prompt. They then look at the model performance task from instructional activity two to create a rubric for scoring the exercise. Using turn and talk,...

Poems For Two Voices are a great resource in any language arts classroom, whether you are studying poetry or not. Focusing on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this instructional activity prompts young authors to write a...

Informative writing is emphasized in the standards. Help your learners reach that goal with the plan for paragraph writing outlined here. After reviewing the work from the day before and adding to their vocabulary notebooks, class...

Scholars analyze a model Readers Theater script. Then, small groups read their scripts aloud to help determine where they need to make revisions.

While this is considered optional within the unit it is designed for, pupils would benefit from the listed activities. Working on writing and revising a paragraph about librarians who travel to isolated areas, class members can add some...

All clear! Scholars read through the body paragraphs of their position papers to ensure clarity. They also review their planners to make sure all information is paraphrased without plagiarism. When satisfied with the body paragraphs,...

Students write a persuasive essay that compares and contrasts a classic fairy tales with a fractured one. They use the writing process to complete and publish the essay.