Analyze point of view and how it affects a literary work with this lesson. Middle schoolers create a written piece that focuses on point of view. They review the literary term "point of view," and explore examples of the term in text....

Learn new words in the context of Kathleen Hague's whimsical alphabet book, Alphabears: An ABC Book (note: you can use these strategies for any text). Get pupils ready by introducing the new words they will...

Create a personal website for Phoebe. Play a song dealing with non-conformity. Have class members write an advice letter to Holden. Here's a teacher resource meant to accompany The Catcher in the Rye that is chock-full of strategies. It...

An activity based on the young adult novel Flipped, groups work to make the same difficult decision a character in the novel faces. Each group is given the same scenario about caring for a mentally disabled brother personally...

Before your high schoolers embark on the journey of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, provide them with this prereading activity. Independently, they respond to seven statements that connect with the novel. For example, they must decide if...

Who was Bill Picket? Interested readers work through an informational passage to find out about a famous "bulldogger" from the old West. They answer several reading comprehension questions and use a seven step process to decode new...

Connect a scene from a class play to events in your middle and high schoolers' own lives. First, they act out a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream in pairs. They work to role play a scene as an extension of the one they have read,...

Combine the study of poetry and non-fiction texts with this complete and ready-to-use six-week unit. After reading numerous poems from local writers and compiling a personal anthology, high schoolers find and read a memoir or biography...

Logan’s Lament, a speech delivered by Mingo Chief Logan in 1774, provides pupils with an opportunity to not only study the historical events surrounding the battle between Native Americans and the Europeans for the West Virginia...

Give beginning readers a chance to practice with unknown words and context clues using the pictuer book Annabelle Swift, Kindergartner. Choose several vocabulary words to focus on as you read the picture book, or use the ones provided...

With Mount Everest as the motivator, your earth science class learns about topographic maps. Begin by showing a film clip from The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest, featuring fearsome virtual imagery of a path up world's tallest...

Talk about intrinsic motivation! Begin where your students' natural interests lie  -- with themselves -- and launch a variety of projects with this activity. Class members research important events that took place on their...

Although this lesson is based on “Final Word,” Craig Wilson’s USA Today column, the strategies could be adapted to any local columnist. After reading three articles independently, groups share observations about content and style used by...

Students practice creating a new presentation document. They gather information on family connections. They share their presentation with the class.

Second graders connect reading to writing by making predictions, completing text to world connections, solving problems, and more. In this reading and writing lesson plan, 2nd graders draw conclusions after reading and write them down.

Eighth graders read and respond to a poem. In this reading and responding lesson plan, 8th graders read a poem as a class and respond to questions about it.

Students discuss equality and fairness by reading a Maya Angelo poem.  In this U.S. history lesson, students read the poem I Know Why Caged Birds Sing, and discuss how the era it was written in affected the words.  Students...

Students create an "art garment" incoporating personal writings and found quotes with images of life and dreams on a disposable or recycled garment. This lesson includes scoring rubric.

Use this SMART board activity with any short story in your unit plan. The SMART board file contains a step-by-step guide to plot diagrams, including an interactive practice page and an assignment. This resource is beneficial for language...

Plan on using Gone with the Wind as a reading selection? Here's a packet of prompts for activities and assessments.

Students, who are adult learners, participate in an Internet scavenger hunt in order to assimilate information about the biography of Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Papers. They look at the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers...

Pull quotes from a text and craft responses to the quotes you chose. First, read a  short excerpt from Mary Claire Wilfert's oral history. Then, read the contemporary poem "Robert's Cove," pulling quotes and writing responses as...

To prepare readers for some of the themes in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, individuals complete an anticipation guide and then share their ideas in small groups.

Eleventh and twelfth graders research and create language-immersion Web-based presentations. They choose a particular theme (family, travel, etc.) to create a webpage on the Internet. They are given a rubric to check their grammar and...