Roald Dahl
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
You can't read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without craving the rich treats described in Dahl's vivid prose. Young writers try their hands at sensory language with a lesson plan that prompts them to write about...
Curated OER
Expressing Your Views to the Letter
Analyze the motivation, purpose, and value of letters to the editor by examining letters written in response to the violence at Columbine High School. For homework, middle and high schoolers write their own letters to the editor about an...
Curated OER
What a Relief!
How are disasters addressed by the Federal Government? This New York Times lesson, based on the article "Disaster Aid: The Mix of Mercy and Politics," prompts middle schoolers to discuss the idea of using a disaster declaration as a...
Curated OER
Voices from Little Rock: Understanding the Civil Rights Movement through Primary Sources
As part of a study of the Civil Rights Movement, class members examine documents associated with the Little Rock Nine, the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution, and chapters from Melba...
National Library of Medicine
Your Environment, Your Health: Runoff, Impervious Surfaces, and Smart Development
Can a sidewalk increase the amount of pollution in local streams? Scholars learn the answer to this question though research and experimentation in the fifth unit in the six-part series. Pupils study runoff, impervious surfaces, and the...
Curated OER
The Bill of Rights
In groups, learners review one of four selected Supreme Court cases. The whole class watches a video introducing the four cases, and then small groups dive into Internet research in an attempt to write a two-paragraph summary of the...
Federal Reserve Bank
The Story of the Federal Reserve: Middle School Lesson Plan
After reading the charming cartoon about the United States Federal Reserve, pupils often need to complete activities to retain their learning. The resource does a wonderful job of using class discussion and various written exercises to...
San José State University
Parallelism
What is parallelism? Novice writers learn about parallelism and practice balancing 10 sentences for better syntax and parallel structure. A clear, straightforward instructional activity with answers included.
Curated OER
Diving into Iceland's Genetic Pool
Investigate ethical issues surrounding the Decode project in Iceland. Middle and high schoolers take the positions of the Icelandic government, scientific researchers, and citizens and defend or refute the Decode project in a Reykjavik...
Curated OER
Whose Rite Is It?
The class explores and debates, from multiple perspectives, a petition to allow Hopi Indians to take golden eagle hatchlings from a federal wildlife sanctuary for use in a religious ceremony. Pupils defend their personal views on the...
Curated OER
Minding the Media
Students reflect on the fairness of rating movies, television, radio, books, magazines, Web sites and other media. They submit their own entries for a media rating guide.
Curated OER
Reading Aloud
Students practice their reading aloud skills. They examine different careers that focus on public speaking. They also gather new tips to practice when speaking aloud.
Curated OER
Class in the Media: Writing a Television Show
Students look at popular media presentations to determine what type of messages they convey about class and class-linked behavior. They listen to contemporary music to explore how the songs touch upon social class issues. They read...
Curated OER
"The Day the Goose Got Loose" Activity Card_ Home-School Connection
In this home-school literacy connection worksheet based on "The Day the Goose Got Loose," students practice retelling and sequencing the story. They cut out story cards and place them in order of the story before writing a number in each...
Curated OER
Wordles, Wordles, Wordles: Pre-Reading for Hamlet Using Key Words
Students analyze a Wordle of the top 150 words in Hamlet and complete a study of the language in the play. In this Hamlet literacy lesson, students work in groups to complete the given handouts to categorize the words of the play and...
Curated OER
Abuela's Weave Teacher's Guide
Learners read and response to the book, Abuela's Weave. In this African-American literature lesson, students discuss pre-reading questions, that focus on family traditions and make predictions about the text. Learners read the text and...
Curated OER
Art About Me- The Skin You Live In
Students read the text The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler. In this literacy lesson, students discuss the characters in the text and the various shades of skin they observed on each page. Students read the beautiful descriptions of the...
Curated OER
Word Wall Words
Pupils practice recognizing sights words. In this literacy instructional activity, students recognize and read 200 sight words, use combinations of words to make sentences, use words to fill in basic sentences, successfully pass spelling...
Starfall
Car Race
In this literacy activity, students cut out the parts of the story and play a game of putting it in the logical order and color the pages.
Starfall
The Little Rooster
For this literacy activity, learners create a story that is about the rooster on the activity. The lines are large enough for younger students.
Curated OER
Here Comes the March!
For this word recognition worksheet, learners call out the final word in a poem that is read to them. The students focus on the rhyming words at the end of each stanza.
Curated OER
Elmer by David McKee
Students explore individual differences. In this literacy and self-esteem lesson, students listen to the story Elmo by David McKee, then describe what characteristics make Elmo special. Students complete a T chart showing how Elmo looked...
Curated OER
Media Literacy Skills
Third graders watch a news story from three different networks in order to determine how the same story can be presented in three different ways. Next, working in small groups they create a newscast of a current event to share with the...
Curated OER
Charlotte's Web
Fourth graders focus on fluency by reading the book Charlotte's Web. In this reading strategies lesson, 4th graders partner read, do guided reading, and independent reading to increase fluency. Students use Venn Diagrams, discuss...