Students select a cartoon to present to the class. They study it for a few minutes, write a list of questions about the cartoon. Students answer each others' questions and change the questions to declarative statements which are used as...

Sixth graders explore the nature of habitats on an ABC hike. In groups, they collect items that make up habitats including plants, feathers, and leaves among other materials. Students then classify and organize the collected materials...

Exercise paragraph writing by focusing on the impact of each statement or idea. For this organizational pattern, writers compose their paragraphs by increasing the force of each idea so that the most important idea is the concluding...

Fourth graders study Indian women in Texas. In this US history instructional activity, 4th graders discuss what each Indian woman's contribution was by completing a timeline and table. Students examine the Caddo Women's...

Demonstrate how to draw in readers by starting a paragraph with a familiar topic, and then moving into the more complex ideas after they are already engaged. Writers can read over the example, which is a bit abstract and might need...

Kids are fascinated by chickens and their eggs. Here is a learning exercise has young learners take a look at the four stages in a chicken's life cycle. They have four cycles to organize: egg, chick, young bird, and adult. They have to...

Is it important to do things in a certain order? Yes, especially when making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or so your class will learn in a lesson on sequencing. After guided practice, class members generate their own “how-to”...

Groups reserach and write about topics given to them by their teacher dealing with the Bill of Rights.

Students explore various cultural identities. They conduct Internet research, develop a questionnaire that profiles information from their selected culture, and write a letter to a pen pal in the U.S. explaining what life in their...

Students explore how democracy in the United States changed and evolved from its birth to the present. They participate in a mock testing environment. Students write a multi-tasked essay on American government and politics.

What's in a name? Pupils create a data set from the number of letters in the names of classmates. Each group then takes the data and creates a visual representation, such as a histogram, circle graph, stem-and-leaf plot, etc.

A literature review goes beyond simply giving a novel a thumbs up or thumbs down. In fact, it may not require an opinion at all. Using a handout on literature reviews, part of a larger series on specific writing assignments, writers...

All paragraphs do not have to be the same! Let your class know with a poster that demonstrates five different paragraph styles, ranging from a six-sentence paragraph to a ten-sentence paragraph. Each style includes a brief sample outline...

Learners can create a portfolio in any class and use this handy table of contents to organize their work effectively. Individuals are asked to include their best work alongside work that demonstrates areas for progress. The table of...

Finding the central idea in a text is equally important in fiction and nonfiction. Work on analyzing a piece of writing for the central idea with Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," complete with supporting...

It is, and it is not. Scholars examine how these words impact Eleanor Roosevelt's speech, in which she tries to persuade the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Readers note rhetoric and figurative language. They then...

Say precisely what you mean. Scholars analyze the importance of Washington's precise language in paragraphs eight and nine of the "Atlanta Compromise" speech. They interpret his figurative language and add it to their Idea Tracking...

Rafael Trujillo was president of the Dominican Republic in the 1930s. Pupils read and analyze the first six paragraphs of Julia Alvarez's autobiographical essay "A Genetics of Justice," in which the author describes Trujillo's impact on...

Wrap up your literary analysis unit with a discussion activity as tenth graders prepare for an end-of-unit assessment. After they have read and annotated Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His Love," Sir Walter Raleigh's...

Now that readers can see the full scope of Sophocles' Oedipus the King, they can draw connections between the dramatic ending and the textual evidence throughout the Greek tragedy. As they prepare for the unit assessment writing prompt,...

The second module in a series for high school seniors focuses on tracking the central idea of a text across genres and from multiple author and character perspectives. Twelfth graders read a speech by Benazir Bhutto entitled "Ideas Live...

As a mid-unit assessment, class members demonstrate their understanding of the concepts covered so far by crafting a formal, multi-paragraph essay in which they analyze how Rainer Maria Rilke's word choices develop the meaning and tone...

People should always choose their words carefully. Scholars examine the words used by Martin Luther King, Jr. in paragraphs 10 and 11 of his "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Readers answer questions about word use, think about synonyms,...

Scholars read the final paragraphs written by Martin Luther King Jr. in "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Readers work in groups to discuss King's word choice and point of view by completing graphic organizers. They also respond to a...