Fluence Learning
Writing About Literature: Nature in the Writings of John Muir and Emily Dickinson
As an assessment of their skill in crafting a compare and contrast essay, class members read and compare the portrayals of nature in excerpts from naturalist John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra and from poet Emily Dickinson's...
Social Studies School Service
Ancient China: Introduction, Map
What a great resource for introducing your youngsters to the world of ancient China and the earliest stages of its timeline. Included are creative ideas for organizing your room, as well as an engaging lesson, anticipatory set,...
Curated OER
Black History Lesson Plan: Gwendolyn Brooks
Learn more about the work of Gwendolyn Brooks with a language arts lesson. Young learners read an informational passage about the acclaimed poet before attempting a shape poem of their own.
Art Institute of Chicago
Lesson Plan: A Writer’s Odyssey
Looking for a fresh approach to an end-of-unit project for The Odyssey? Check out a resource that has class members write their own hero's journey short story and then craft an illustration that depicts their tale. Apollonio di...
Curated OER
A River Ran Wild: An Environmental History
The Nashua River serves as the focal point of an investigation of the treatment of and care for natural resources. A reading of A River Rand Wild: An Environmental History by Lynne Cherry, launches the study and class members consider...
Curated OER
Introduction to the Nature Journal
Students create nature journals. In this introduction to the nature journal lesson, students discover the uses of nature journals and begin their own. Students are challenged to use vivid, concise terms in their descriptive language....
Curated OER
Jack London's The Call of the Wild: "Nature Faker"?
Young scholars take a stand on whether or not London could be dubbed a "nature faker." They support their position with evidence either historical or from the text. Students write an essay, complete with hypothesis and textual support,...
Curated OER
"ART ZOO 'Blacks in the Westward Movement', 'What Can You Do with a Portrait', and 'Of Beetles, Worms, and Leaves of Grass'"
Students study black history, examine portraits and portrait making and create their own portraits, and investigate their natural environment. This humanities lesson provides a text that can be used to teach lessons in black...
School District No. 43
Writing a Greek Myth
Ask your learners to dream up a myth set in modern day. These mythology writing prompts require individuals take on the role of an ancient Greek citizen who just woke up to a totally different world. Through this lens, class members...
Curated OER
Protest Letter
What a fantastic resource to guide youngsters in persuasive letter writing. They read a brief letter to the editor and answer question about the author's purpose, word choice, and structure. Next, scholars draft their own letter by...
Curated OER
Cyberspace Safari
Middle schoolers go on an information gathering hunt on the Internet to study West African empires. They work in teams; meteorologists, bankers, writers, and archaeologists. They collect data on all sorts of topics related to West...
Annenberg Foundation
Spirit of Nationalism
What were the virtues and values that helped form America? Pupils watch and discuss a video, read biographies of early Americans, chart the differences between early American religious movements, write journals and letters, draw, and...
Japan Society
Akutagawa Ryunosuke and the Taisho Modernists
Japan's Taisho Period was a time when authors like Akutagawa and other Japanese modernists began to experiment with point of view and literary form, making the literature produced during this time period a natural choice for teaching...
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
Investigating the Declaration of Independence
Teach your class about the Declaration of Independence while giving them practice working as a team. The resource breaks participants into groups and has them answer questions about specific grievances from the Declaration of...
Penguin Books
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Young Readers Edition
As the saying goes, you are what you eat. A useful set of lesson plans encourage young readers to take a second look at their eating habits. Pre- and post-reading questions bring in reflective writing and discussion while extension...
Curated OER
Discovering National Parks
Students work to preserve American National Parks. In this environmental activism lesson, students research the history of the national parks and determine why they were created. Students then focus on protecting the land, using it for...
Curated OER
Water Creative Writing
Students red and discuss an example of a biographical essay. They read The Last of the Falling Tide by Car Hiassen, answer factual questions concerning the work, and create their own story about a natural place they are familiar with ,...
Curated OER
The City of New Haven
Students examine the geography, politics and history of their local town of New Haven, Connecticut. Using the internet, they explore the neighbors of New Haven and write directions from their house to school. In groups, they research...
Curated OER
Creating Dramatic Monologues from The Grapes of Wrath
The characters in The Grapes of Wrath come to life through an activity that asks groups to craft a dramatic monologue for a character in John Steinbeck's National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Writers are...
Curated OER
Letters from the Japanese American Internment
Students examine letters of Japanese-American children during internment in World War II. They discover what it was like in the camps and how they were treated once they were released. They also view photographs of the camps.
Smithsonian Institution
Solomon G. Brown: Letter Writing
Personal correspondence in the form of letters is not as common as it once was. This resource presents an opportunity for you to introduce your class to letter writing and cover topics in social studies. Learners read a letter written in...
Curated OER
The Renaissance Lesson Plans
The Renaissance, Michaelangelo, DaVinci and the Divine Proportion offer Many Exciting Teaching Opportunities
Curated OER
Teaching with Collections
Students examine collections. In these real-world collections lessons, students examine and describe buttons and shells. Students will then sort, classify, and graph items according to various indicated descriptors.
Curated OER
A Basin Filled With Time
Students use fossil leaves and a mathematical formula to study climate change. In this climate change and fossil lesson plan, students determine the differences in temperatures during two different times during the Cenozoic era using...