Almost every American is familiar with the Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education. Far fewer understand the constitutional reasoning or the wide-ranging consequences of the ruling in the field of criminology. The interesting...

What was Shakespeare's youth like? Virginia Woolf considers the question in her nonfiction text, A Room of One's Own. Scholars begin reading Woolf's work before analyzing some of the text. Next, they write an objective summary and...

Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

Many developmentally disabled learners struggle with accurately conveying messages and interpreting those of others around them, especially when they are non-verbal. This lesson contains fun activities and exercises, such as talking with...

First graders practice summarizing with the book Sheila Rae the Brave by Kevin Henkes. In this summarizing lesson, 1st graders read the story over 3 days and answer comprehension questions. They write a summary about what they book was...

Fifth graders investigate coral reefs and the dangers they face by labeling and drawing.  In this oceanography instructional activity, 5th graders view a PowerPoint presentation of photographs of coral reefs in Belize....

Students discover many characteristics of the starfish. In this early childhood lesson plan, students identify characteristics of starfish. Students develop a language experience chart and record their new-found information, and...

Students analyze foreign policy. In this Fourteen Points lesson, students examine Wilson's Fourteen Points, explore Allied reaction to the Points, and compare Wilson's foreign policy to the Versailles Treaty. 

Children can learn to analyze expository or informational texts at nearly any age. This scaffolded and scripted resource provides teachers with the support needed to facilitate a thoughtful lesson on summarizing informational text...

Let’s learn about frogs! Young readers are led through “Freaky Frogs,” a non-fiction article. Teach learners how to edit an article so there are fewer details to sift through. After talking through the article, they learn the six steps...

If your class can sequence events in a story, are pretty good at retell, and can identify the main point, they are probably ready for reading comprehension through summarizing. This lesson provides a teacher's script that facilitates...

Scholars apply the concepts of box plots and dot plots to summarize and describe data distributions. They use the data displays to compare sets of data and determine numerical summaries. 

  Wake up, sleepy head! High schoolers craft a creative presentation that represents how they feel when they wake up on a school morning. After the presentations, a reading of Academic Sleep Times and Academic Performance launches a...

Learners examine the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Supreme Court cases in order to broaden their understanding of the US Judicial System. They research a variety of textual and Internet resources to create a tri-fold brochure,...

Pupils create multimedia speeches of introduction which focus on women and Hispanics. They introduce their famous person and, using a video camera, video tape their speeches. 

In this reading worksheet, students read a given portion of a book, summarize the information, select vocabulary words, write questions and answers about the reading, and draw an illustration of their favorite part. Students complete...

Did the Declaration of Independence really intend to grant liberty for all? Get your class thinking about historical perspective with documents relaying the experiences of women, white men, and African-Americans during the Revolutionary...

Who was Vincent van Gogh? Most of the questions can be answered in two or three sentences; however, there is at least one essay prompt and one personal response question that require longer answers. Questions call for a good mix of...

Don't just think outside of the box — read outside of it! The 15th lesson in a 22-part unit provides pupils more work with box plots. Learners read the box plots to estimate the five-number summary and interpret it within the context....

Encourage scholars to retell their favorite short story or folktale, adding personal details to make it their own. After reading their book of choice several times, story tellers retell a tale verbally to their classmates. 

What can we find out about the data from the way it is shaped? Looking at displays that are familiar from previous grades, the class forms meaningful conjectures based upon the context of the data. The introductory lesson to...