Having prepared for an analysis essay about one of the characters from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, tenth graders demonstrate their understanding in a mid-unit assessment. They focus on either Jing-Mei or Waverly in an informative...

Scholars submit their final performance task, a letter to a publisher about an athlete's legacy. As a culminating activity, they share their work with classmates in small groups. 

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.  

Continue a thoughtful analysis of Sophocles' Oedipus the King by discussing the importance of dialogue within the play's structure. Ninth graders examine how Oedipus speaks about himself to his subjects and Creon before recording their...

Grab a debatable (or controversial) moment from your current reading, and use this task to progress the persuasive writing skills of your high school scholars. Divide your learners into four small groups and let them collaborate, debate,...

Learners take a closer look at one journalist's work on UN Peacebuilding efforts in four African nations: Sierra Leone, Burundi, Central African Republic, and Guinea Bissau. They collaborate to define peacebuilding and discuss...

It's that time of year to consider how Shakespeare selects his images and structures his Sonnet 73 to develop the meaning of the poem. Class members examine the rhyme scheme, the indented lines, the conceit, and the images used in each...

What lengths will one go to for love? Louis, a swan in The Trumpet of The Swan, struggles to gain the attentions of a girl because he cannot trumpet. Thankfully, his father creates a plan that may work. Scholars discover Louis's attempts...

True friends stick together. In the case of The Wind In The Willows, the friends just happen to be a toad, mole, rat, and badger who team up to beat the weasels. The resource covers the first chapter of their raucous adventures. Scholars...

How can scholars better understand the refugee experience? Pupils read Fox Butterfield's article "Panic Rises in Saigon, but the Exits are Few" and connect it to the novel Inside Out & Back Again. They annotate the text, looking for...

As part of their study of Elie Wiesel's Night, individuals assume the voice of an Auschwitz survivor and craft a letter to a former SS officer who worked at the camp and claims he is not guilty of any crime. 

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...

The accusations begin in Sophocles' Oedipus the King, with troublemakers and enemies abound. As learners delve deeply into the sights unseen, they review textual evidence from their readings to write about the importance of timing in the...

Can dogs feel shame? Explore the anthropomorphic connection between human emotions and animal behavior—or lack thereof—with a lesson about Temple Grandin's book, Animals in Translation. Ninth graders continue a close reading of chapter...

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....

To launch a unit study of the concept of diversity in World Literature, class members compare Chinua Achebe's essay, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" and Richard Rodriguez's essay, "The Chinese in All of...

Color the town red. Demonstrate the concept of graph theory with a task that involves determining the least number of colors needed to color a map so that neighboring countries are not represented by the same color. Pupils...

After screening an episode by BizKids, scholars show what they know about business vocabulary, then take part in grand conversations about role models and ethical dilemmas.

Want your class to use critical thinking when discussing vocabulary? Go beyond the dictionary with a vocabulary activity based on Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. Kids write the word in the center of a graphic organizer that also provides...

Schools in the 1950s and 60s looked very different from the schools we know today. An educator's guide explores the civil rights movement and, specifically, the process of integrating schools. Questions cover key themes in the novel and...

Most people think of war when they think of casualities. However, Ada used war to regain her life. A ten-year-old girl in The War That Saved My Life is a prisoner in her own home. However. when her brother goes to war, she takes the...

Learners study the decisions and solutions involved in winning the right to vote. After reading background information on the fight for women's suffrage, including one woman's story, and its eventual success in the United States and...

Present your pupils with some moral dilemmas to examine. The scenarios, which learners rank by seriousness individually and then in groups, require learners to think about right and wrong.

Build beautiful books in whatever style you'd like with an intuitive and adaptable app for constructing books. Kids can add images, drawings, text, and audio to make books about any subject. When complete, learners can wrap up the...