How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty...

This packet, the first in the series of support materials for the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt thematic units on silly stories, contains enrichment activities for learners who have mastered the basic concepts of the lessons.

How does a fox outsmart an eagle and all the creatures of the sea? Read about a tricky fox with a short story, followed by four comprehension questions about the plot and another possible endings.

How did the deer get its antlers? Learners read through a short story about an animal race and the winner's prize before answering comprehension questions.

Young activists examine local civil rights issues presented in news media sites to determine what elements make these stories attention-grabbing and trustworthy. Using this information and their worksheets from the first two lessons in...

Explore this engaging approach to division problem solving with young scholars. They construct story problems after drawing 3 cards that give them a type of object, how many they have of that object, and the number of groups the object...

How do you grow a goal from a dream to reality? You make a plan! After reading chapters two and three of Where the Red Fern Grows, learners map how Billy earns his dogs by completing an organizer in pairs and then discussing answers in...

A six-week unit takes high schoolers through various works of African-American literature, including poems, plays, and short stories. The lesson plan format includes a week-by-week description of activities, goals, materials, and...

Help your learners use dialogue in their stories. This presentation explores the use of dialogue in narratives. It is a comprehensive and thoughtful look at this topic.

Dazai Osamu’s short story, “A Sound of Hammering” is the focus of a three-day investigation of modern Japanese literature and life in post-World War II Japan. The events in Osamu’s story mirror those in his own life, and give a...

The Vietnam War was the first war to come into American living rooms with its images of American soldiers fighting in jungles far, far away. Young historians analyze and curate photos from the conflict, deciding how they would create a...

Students, assessing a variety of formatting tools with Microsoft Word, utilize a bank of vocabulary words to make a personal dictionary of nouns. They classify nouns for people, places, things and ideas and separate them into common and...

How can evidence and perspective challenge even the most well-known of stories? Through primary and secondary source analysis, think-alouds, and discussion, young historians evaluate the historical narrative of Rosa Parks across multiple...

How does weather play a role in the lives of land and sea creatures? Find out with a activity focused on habitats and the ways animals from different homes are connected. Here, learners explore how the life of a jaguar and...

A 12-page teacher's guide to Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees provides the discussion questions and activities that lead readers to understand not only Lily's fears, but her reasons behind them.

Nineteen slides use the story of Chris Cuomo of CNN and his refusal to discuss his brother, New York governor Andrew's political troubles, to inform viewers about the idea of conflict of interest in journalism. 

Your learners will take key economic concepts, such as identifying needs versus wants and the four factors of production, and design a video to explain their topic choice to the class. Rather than have one person in charge of dispensing...

Access a wealth of rich, engaging activities that will allow learners to see through the eyes of Anne Frank and experience her emotional journey as they read her biography The Diary of a Young Girl.

Ready yourself for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with this analysis of the novel. Included here is a summary of the plot, a list of themes, notes on vocabulary and other issues, a brief analysis of plot elements, and project ideas...

There's nothing fishy about this resource. In the task, learners use given information about fish prices to create a scatter plot and line of best-fit. Later, they use the information to answer questions about the profit from fish sales.

Students investigate the building of the Great Wall of China during the Ming Dynasty and utilize the story of the wall to examine some of the history of China.

Connect emotions to grammar with a grammar exercise that taps into a little bit of creativity. Given an emotion, learners come up with a matching interjection. There are 10 emotions listed.

Close out the school year with a look back at a specific event. You provide individuals with photos of themselves, and each pupil fills out the graphic organizer here to prepare for writing a paragraph about the memory depicted in the...

Although Westward Expansion is often romanticized, its impact was devastating on Native American communities. Primary source documents, including pictures of United States troops invading indigenous lands and Native American tribes, tell...