It's all in the details. Scholars read acts two and three of The Hero's Journey and collect important details from the text. They share their notes with their peers and listen for key words from the story. They then turn their attention...

The end of the year has arrived, which means it's time to find out what your third graders have learned with this practice Common Core assessment. Presented with one narrative and one expository reading passage, young learners...

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs provides the lens class members use to analyze and evaluate the motivations of the characters in Sylvia Plath's "Initiation" and scenes from Mean Girls. Readers then select a character from A...

A poet's word choice can be the difference between a poem that is merely sad, and a poem full of heartbreaking regret. Middle schoolers discern the tone in four different poems, noting the relevant textual evidence that supports...

Discern the tone in four selected poems with a straightforward assignment. Junior high readers analyze the authors' word choice and text structure to define a tone for each poem, as well as each poem's meaning.

Discover lyric poetry through a reading of Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar and analyze its meaning with three short-answer questions covering symbolism, personification, alliteration, metaphors, and similes. 

What is your credit score? How do you find it? Help your pupils answer these questions and more. They will access their free credit report and then analyze its meaning.

Build a connection between algebraic sequences and spreadsheets. Learners examine a specific folding pattern and convert the pattern into a spreadsheet. The goal of the spreadsheet is to produce a sequence of a specific pattern modeled...

What does it mean to be respectful? Scholars complete a self-assessment worksheet to determine just how respectful they are. Next, they choose three items from the survey and write plans for how to improve in those areas.

Mean girls and bully packs are favorite topic for films and TV shows that focus on the destructive power of cliques. High school freshmen are asked to reflect on both the positive and negative aspects of cliques by reading a short...

Learn what it means to respect others in an engaging lesson on religious beliefs. An inclusive resource focuses on understanding other religious beliefs, the right to freedom of religion, and the U.S. history of religious diversity....

Most have heard of climate change, but what does it really mean? Scholars first answer a set of pre-assessment questions about climate change to help instructors gauge how much they know. They listen to a video lecture, watch a news...

Discover what makes a cup of tea feel hot one minute and cold the next. Young physicists learn about thermal energy, why substances feel hot or cold, and the three means of thermal energy transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation...

To gain an appreciation of the power of point of view, class members compare Ovid's version of the myth of "Orpheus and Eurydice" with that used by H.D. in her poem, "Eurydice." Individuals then craft a reflection in which they use...

Words! Words have meaning and power, and using them leads to consequences. The activities in this lesson are designed to remind participants to choose their words wisely when they speak.

Did you know that "30-40 percent of all words in English have a related word in Spanish?" This fact launches an interactive study of cognates appearing the same in English and Spanish. Learners demonstrate what they have learned about...

To prepare for an assessment of how well individuals are progressing with their ability to identify and analyze figurative language and its effect on tone and meaning, pairs work through Chapter Four of Christopher Paul Curtis'...

Oedipus' lack of literal and figurative vision does not mean he cannot see his guilt in the terrible fates of Laius, Jocasta, and all the lives touched by prophecy. Conclude a literary analysis unit on Sophocles' Oedipus the King with a...

What common challenges do refugees and immigrants face? Using the 9th lesson plan from the 20-part Grade 8 ELA Module 1, Unit 2 series, pupils read about the similarities between refugees' and immigrants' adaptation processes. Partners...

What does it mean to mourn something? Scholars continue reading paragraph four from "Refugee and Immigrant Children: A Comparison" to better understand the mourning process for refugee children. Working with a partner, pupils then read...

What makes sports so special to many Americans? Scholars ponder the question as they participate in a gallery walk, immersing themselves in images and texts about sports. Pupils also complete a vocabulary strategies anchor chart to...

A repetition poem is the focus of a lesson that challenges scholars to compose an original piece. To add meaning to their poem, authors choose words to repeat at the start of most lines.  

Students research newspapers and the Internet to learn about the election. Students work in groups and choose a state that they want to compare to Florida. Students organize the data they have found into a graph labeling an "x" and "y"...

Students review mean, median, mode, and range while using the newspaper to answer weather questions.