Mark Twain, the famous American author, is often studied in the school system. Use "The Prince and the Pauper" to analyze the differences between the text and its video version.  This lesson includes several culminating project...

Fighting a war over home soil makes a living nightmare even more real. Class members describe the experience of a Civil War soldier during the Battle of Franklin, poised right at a major turning point of the war, after researching the...

Introducing your class to essay writing? The gentle tone, concise explanations, and clear examples provided by a 17-slide presentation introduces young writers to the expository essay format. All that's missing is a complete essay with...

What do you know about the Vietnam War? What do you want to find out? How to do you plan on finding this information? To gain an understanding of the backdrop of The Wednesday Wars, class members create a KWHL chart and then begin...

Prepare class members for a discussion of Sonia Levitin's dystopian novel The Cure, by leading them on a guided imagery exercise designed to encourage visualization of written descriptions.

Students listen to the Scottish tale, The Princess and the Golden Shoes, creating a character chart. They develop a newspaper containing news stories, personality profiles, and editorials regarding The Princess and the Golden Shoes.

Students listen to headline from National Enquirer or other tabloid, listen to story "Journalism in Tennessee," compare and contrast connections between Twain's idea of journalism with present day journalism, define vocabulary, and...

Young scholars examine primary sources as related to Nevada and the Civil War. In this United States history instructional activity, students gather and analyze various primary sources in small groups and interpret unknown vocabulary...

Students complete vocabulary activities for Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Students review a list of vocabulary words from the text and rate the words. Students write each word and a definition. Students discuss the...

Students examine behavior. In this polite manners lesson, students will determine appropriate responses to different situations they may experience at school. They will listen to the story My Manners Matter by Pat Thomas and contribute...

Students view butterflies and participate in a butterfly activity to learn needed vocabulary. In this butterfly life cycle lesson, students access prior knowledge of butterflies.  Students listen to a butterfly life cycle book....

Students discover the times of Colonial America by creating a timeline.  In this U.S. History lesson, students research a teacher-directed website about African Americans in early colonial times.  Students utilize their...

Who were Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton? High schoolers examine the character traits of these historical figures and watch the video, The Duel. Hamilton vs. Burr: An Event that Changed History (available from PBS), to gain...

You'll C-E-R a difference in classroom achievement after using a helpful instructional activity. Designed for economics, civics, government, and US history classes, participants practice using the CER model to craft arguments about...

The six instructional shifts in this workshop definitely move math and science teachers' understanding of instruction. The workshop, 13th out of a series of 15, asks participants to examine sample tests and to look at how the six...

How do I solve a two-digit multiplication problem? Your class tackles this question by walking through problem solving methods. They first investigates and applies traditional multiplication methods, and they then compare those with...

Discover the family histories that make the classroom with a family tree activity. Scholars locate information about their family, construct a family tree, and work together to tally where family members are born.  

Someone finds a time capsule 100 years from now, and it includes your family photo album. What would the photos tell that person about you and your place in history? Scholars investigate how artifacts tell stories. Using photos, maps,...

How have educational standards evolved? Educators of adults examine expectations in the 10th workshop out of 15 to better determine how standards have grown. Participants respond to a variety of sample questions to determine how they...

Dancers practice echoing through dance. They listen to a story "Flip and Flop" and then are put into pairs. One partner is Flip, while the other is Flop. Flip creates a shape by dancing, and Flop, the other student, echoes that shape by...

Students create a car using physics. In this forces and motion lesson, students create a car and test which changes in design change the performance of the car. Students complete a graphic organizer with the different changes...

Eighth graders take a stand on a variety of controversial topics with a lesson on argumentative writing. As they view an informative presentation and work with collaborative groups, they decide which side of each argument they want to...

Through the journey of four stories of immigration, scholars complete graphic organizers and apply knowledge to create a visual representation of their findings on a large poster. Third and fourth readers write a letter to their...

Alice Walker's poem "Women" provides ninth graders the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to identify how a writer's choice of syntax and diction contribute to the development of the theme of the work.