Learners create a KWHL chart as a pre-reading strategy. In this graphic organizer lesson, students communicate their background knowledge before reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Learners continue to construct their KWHL chart as they...

In this longitude activity, middle schoolers read a 3-paragraph review of longitude and respond to 13 short answer questions.

Learners use reading strategies for Night of the Twister. In this reading strategies lesson, students name five major catastrophes and books about each. Learners complete a vocabulary section, make inferences and predictions, read the...

Students discuss the topic of anger management. In this anger management lesson, students learn the acronym S.P.A.M. (Stop, Ponder, Appreciate, Moment) in order to help students deal with anger. Students role play and engage in a class...

Third graders explore language arts by analyzing a children's story in class. In this story structure lesson, 3rd graders read the book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and write a brief summary. Students identify the beginning,...

The poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the focus of a unit that asks readers to consider how an artist's life and changes in society influences his or her work. After careful study of Whitman's and Dickinson's perspectives on...

After reading on the topic of their paper, high schoolers work in pairs to assess how to write powerful, precise thesis statements. The introduction contains three statements: a universal statement, a bridge statement, and a thesis...

How does word choice affect the reading of a text? Compare two headlines that were written about the same event. Is one biased? Discuss how word choice often reveals the author's feelings about a topic. Then look at different techniques...

Being able to read and recall is a very important skill. Why not have learners read about an American holiday phenomenon? They'll answer who, what, when, where, why, and how with regard to a New York Times article about a school for...

If you are teaching Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, you can't afford to miss this source. An extensive list of ideas outlines numerous discussion topics, writing prompts, comprehension questions, oral presentations, and projects. Have class...

Take advantage of Banned Book Week to pique high schoolers' interest and get them reading! Create a classroom display of previously banned books and allow each member of your class to choose one to read. After they have read their book,...

A reading of “Gatsby’s Green Light Beckons a New Set of Strivers,” a New York Times article by Sara Rimer, triggers a discussion of the American Dream and what it means to strive for something. Following the discussion, class members...

Read an article about the migration of our ancestors and write a paragraph. Pupils paraphrase and summarize to restate the information found in a nonfiction text. They write a shortened version of the reading to demonstrate the...

Analyze various excerpts from Hamlet and read articles to develop an argument about his sanity. Middle and high schoolers write an argument essay defending whether or not they believe Hamlet is insane. You could modify this assignment...

Read a sample of creative descriptive writing to your science class. Discuss how writing can be used to record and communicate observations that scientists make. Reading selections and thought-provoking questions are suggested. Also...

Do you want to hear a joke about nitrogen and oxygen? NO. We all know there is oxygen in the air and that plants produce oxygen, but how was it discovered? Scholars read a handout, answer questions, and analyze material in the...

What is the root of the conflict between ranchers and environmentalists? Middle schoolers write their impressions of what an environmentalist is and does. They read the New York Times article "In New Wild West, It's Cowboys vs....

After reading Julius Caesar 1.2 and 1.3, break your class into pairs for this role-play. Each pair will receive one of four prompts (or more, if you create additional examples), in which one person tries to persuade the other to do...

Blogs provide the motivation for this richly detailed writing lesson. After viewing blogs on various websites, class members pick topics, create a blog, and post an entry. Your bloggers then evaluate their work using evaluation sheets....

The emotional and spiritual oppression of slavery in the African-American experience is the focus of this lesson. Middle schoolers analyze various texts by Frederick Douglass and Maya Angelou related to freedom and oppression....

So many people fought for Civil Rights in the United States. Read about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and discuss what the act guarantees. Then pass out a slew of magazines and encourage them to observe how often minorities appear in...

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.

A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....

Introduce your class to Edgar Allan Poe with a series of mostly self-guided tasks and assignments. Class members follow the list of tasks, starting by watching a video with background information and ending with a compare-and-contrast...