Students read Mr. Popper's Penguins.  In this Mr. Popper's Penguins lesson, students record descriptive clues from the book.  Students research Adelie penguins and compare and contrast to their local community. Students prepare...

Students experience and enjoy the sounds of poetry. They erform sound experiments with sonnets and closely read and analyze a sonnet by Shakespeare. Students write an analysis of how sound affects meaning in a sonnet chosen from the...

Readers of Robert Cormier's Tunes for Bears to Dance to are asked to consider the morality of the central character's actions

Second graders use literature journals and discussion groups to summarize and improve their reading comprehension. In this reading skills lesson, 2nd graders discuss animals they've loved and read the story The Girl Who Loved Wild...

Learners analyze the archetype of 'the fall' in Shakespeare's Macbeth. In this literary analysis lesson, students work in tiered learning groups to analyze the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Learners use the book of Genesis as...

As part of a final discussion of The House on Mango Street, groups examine a concept question about the text, record arguments for and opposed to the question, and then a draw their own conclusions.

Prior to reading Fever 1793, class members are introduced to vocabulary drawn from the text of Laurie Halse Anderson's novel with a bingo-style activity. The vocabulary list, a teacher copy with definitions, and the bingo template are...

Learners listen to story A Mason-Dixon Memory, by Clifton Davis, and complete worksheets about the story. The worksheets are embedded in the plan. This activity provides good reading comprehension practice for young readers.

Read the books, "Frog and Toad Are Friends," and "Tale of a Tadpole," to distinguish between fantasy and reality in the books. For this reading comprehension lesson plan, students review the similarities and differences in each book with...

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.

Compare and contrast the characters in John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Using a Venn diagram, kids write in different traits to describe each person, and note their shared characteristics in the middle section.

Why is Apple suing Samsung? Give your English language learners a bit of reading comprehension practice. First, they read the short passage provided, and then they complete 10 activities. There are true or false questions, matching...

Students create a Star Book report in 30 minutes or less using exactly 15 words, computers, and the Kidspiration or Inspiration educational software. This quick Language Arts lesson is ideal for assessment of each student's reading...

Practice recognizing the short vowel /i/ in written and spoken language. Introduce the target sound with a fun tongue twister about Lizzy the lizard. Through matching and listening activities, learners discriminate the vowel sound /i/...

What would your class like to learn about Japanese culture? Prepare them for a novel unit about Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter with a KWL chart. After listing what they already know about Japanese culture, they write questions...

Readers of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner assume the voice of one of the characters from the novel and draft eight reflective journal entries and a one-page collage that depicts the character's interests, personal beliefs, etc.

Students demonstrate listening comprehension skills. They listen to an audio reading of two newspaper articles, identify verbs, answer discussion questions, and complete a cloze activity.

After reading a series of informational articles regarding the Hudson River Estuary, the class will answer a series of comprehension questions. An answer key is provided but the articles and worksheets are not.

Here is a unique twist for your lesson on hurricanes. After examining extreme weather news headlines, your storm chasers view a PowerPoint about hurricanes and then zoom in on Hurricane Irene. They map a timeline of her trek up the East...

The House of Representatives has a lot of responsibility  in the United States government. But how did it all begin, and why is it the way it is now? A comprehensive lesson plan answers all of these questions about the US...

How difficult was it for everyone to get voting rights? Understanding voting rights and the fight to get them for everyone in the United States can be tricky for some learners. However, they are clarified after engaging in the...

The topic of consumerism seems easy to those who participate actively in the US economy, but pupils who are new to economics may see the idea as foreign. Help them understand their rights as consumers and what to expect when interacting...

The German youth faced an onslaught of propaganda when they went to school, thanks to the Nazi regime led by Hitler during World War II. Pupils relate their education experiences to German youth by analyzing primary source readings,...

After reading excerpts from Frederick Douglass' autobiography, pupils will draw on what they've learned about the cruelty of slavery to write and present an anti-slavery speech or editorial.