"First Appearance," Mark Twain's tale about overcoming stage fright, serves as a model of a personal narrative and gets young writers thinking about milestones in their own lives. After examining student models and considering the...

After reading The Great Gatsby, groups return to the text and note passages where Fitzgerald uses symbols and color imagery in his narrative. They then develop a presentation that explains the context, the implications, and possible...

Do you know the name for the biological study of interactions? A short presentation with accompanying worksheet introduces individuals to ecology. The materials offer a broad overview of the subject and the levels of organization to...

While the Spanish claimed to bring civilization to California indigenous peoples, in reality, they also brought violence and forced assimilation to European values. Primary sources, such as the reports of Catholic priests and Europeans...

A 13-page packet introduces high schoolers to a lady of amazing firsts. Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman elected to Congress, the first Black woman to run for President of the United States, and a leader of the Women's Rights...

Students develop their own research questions dealing with specific variables provided by the instructor; students conduct bird counts using two kinds of birdseed, and analyze possible effects such as abundance or diversity.

Students investigate a hypothesis about birds in their backyard using identification and survey skills.

Review with your young learners what opposites are and use a fun tag board game called Auntie Alice to practice. After the class plays the game, pairs work on computers practicing with interactive matching/flashcards/concentration games...

Young scholars complete a unit of lessons that examine the goals of the Americans during the Revolutionary War. They explore an online interactive map of major campaigns, read and analyze primary source documents, and analyze diplomatic...

Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic...

Take your science class on a hypothetical field trip to Mars with an engaging astronomy lesson. After first learning about NASA's Mars rover missions, young scientists plan their own scientific investigations of Earth's...

Third graders tally, sort, and organize pizza orders from monthly school sales. They create an advertising campaign to promote the School Pizza Sale, record the data in graph form, compare and contrast the tallies throughout the year,...

Choosing a poet or a theme, eighth graders conduct research in the world of poetry. They conduct Internet research and select five poems that fit their poet or theme, and create a seven slide PowerPoint presentation on their selected...

Students build and compare models of both an energy inefficient and efficient classroom. In this energy efficiency lesson, students creatively use recycled materials to build two separate classroom models. They factor in concepts such as...

Eighth graders identify figurative language and poetry in this literary analysis lesson. Using Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and a YouTube video for "The Walrus and the Carpenter," young readers complete a literary device...

Analyze the depth and beauty of American Literature by reading Emily Dickinson's letters and poems. The class analyzes Dickinson's poetic style and discusses Thomas Wentworth Higginson's editorial relationship with Dickinson. They pay...

"Tone means attitude." Or so says this resource that uses Jordan Pruitt's "One Love" to model for songwriters how to develop an attitude in their lyrics. Class members engage in a number of exercises designed to give them direct and...

Seventh graders discover who the Tejanas were and how they contributed to World War II. In this World War II lesson plan, 7th graders listen to their instructor discuss who the Tejanas were prior to researching the contributions of three...

Middle schoolers will paraphrase a resource without plagiarizing. Then rewrite after reading text. They then evaluate the site or reference they are using for accuracy. In the end, they complete a note-taking organizer.

Class members create literary mandalas for two characters from Maus, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about his father’s experiences with the Holocaust. After finding quotes that reveal three good traits and three bad traits of each...

The role women played in the Civil War, especially in relief efforts, is the focus of this seven-page resource. Groups examine primary source materials to determine how this work reflected and expanded the traditional roles women held in...

Lesson 6 of this extensive unit finally has your class begin to work their way through specific articles from the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Before examining the rights actually detailed in the...

Does your ELA class need some practice with the specific skills outlined in the Common Core standards? Then this is the perfect resource for you! One in a series of connected lessons that cover the standards for reading literature,...

Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...