Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 1
Make a study of the First Amendment and its relationship to freedom. Pupils rewrite the amendment and discuss the central idea before focusing on a specific phrase. After discussing, class members write a journal entry about the included...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 15: Theme
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...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2
Identifying the theme or central idea of a text is a skill many young readers struggle with. It is also the second standard for reading literature in the Common Core. This resource, one from a series of Common Core lessons, can provide...
Fairfax Public Schools
Walter Dean Myers
If you are reading works by Walter Dean Myers in your class, this resource might be worth a look. Included here are activities and discussion questions for Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary, Somewhere in the Darkness, Scorpions, Fallen...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 17: Obituary
The Cay has been criticized by groups such as the Council on Interracial Books for Children because of the way race is portrayed. Explore the argument against the book while taking the author's perspective into account. Class members...
Curated OER
Peter and the Starcatchers: Multi-Genre Writing Assignment
Conclude your unit on Peter and the Starcatchers with an involved final writing project that requires learners to write persuasive pieces, compose short stories, create brochures about the setting of the novel, and choose from a list of...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 14: Dedication
Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 3
If you're looking to set your class up for writing effective arguments, try out this idea. While originally created with freedom as a guiding idea, the activity could easily be adapted for other themes. As a class, create a chart of...
Curated OER
Hatchet: Concept Analysis
Take an in-depth look into Gary Paulsen's Hatchet with a concept guide. With a list and explanation of thematic motifs, types of conflicts, and vocabulary in the novel, learners will engage with the text in a whole new way.
Teaching Tolerance
Buddy Share
Here's a project that gives academics the chance to share their opinions on social justice with storytelling, creative writing, or art. Scholars choose what they want to create and are assigned buddies to support their efforts. To...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 18: Investigate
Prepare your class for argumentative writing with a close inspection of the controversy surrounding Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. All necessary articles and materials are linked at the beginning of the resource. Kids use the provided...
Education Development Center
Choosing Samples
What makes a good sample? Your classes collaborate to answer this question through a task involving areas of rectangles. Given a set of 100 rectangles, they sample a set of five rectangles to estimate the average area of the figures. The...
Curated OER
The Outsiders Essay Question Options
Extend your study of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton with an essay. Pupils can choose one of the three prompts provided on this page and write about either characterization, conflict, or theme. Each prompt includes a brief definition of the...
Teaching Tolerance
Community Newsletter
What does it take to develop and publish a newsletter? Young academics create a newsletter with original artwork for their school or community. They explore social justice themes and spread messages of tolerance and inclusion. Scholars...
Teaching Tolerance
Consuming and Creating Political Art
A picture is worth a thousand words, but political art may be worth even more! After examining examples of political cartoons, murals, and other forms of public art, class members create their own pieces to reflect their ideals and...
Teaching Tolerance
Identity Portraits
When you look at me, what do you see? Young learners answer this question by creating a portrait that reflects the identity of one of their peers. First, class members create interview questions. Then, they interview classmates to...
Dr. Seuss Enterprises
Dr. Seuss in the Classroom
Explore the works of Dr. Seuss, such as Horton Hears a Who, Horton Hatches and Egg, The Sneetches and Other Stories, The Lorax, The Butter Battle Book, and Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. Each story lesson includes reading...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Tales of the Supernatural
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 novel to...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 9: Climax
Conduct a close reading of chapter 9 of The Cay. Read the chapter again and ask pupils to respond to a list of included text-dependent questions. Finish the class with the provided writing assignment, which asks learners to use textual...
Teaching Tolerance
Musical Movement Showcase
Young performing artists create a song or choreograph a dance to illustrate a theme in a text they are reading. Step-by-step directions are included.
Leadership Challenge
That's a Chop!: Developing Leadership Trough Teamwork
"The more trusted people feel, the better they innovate." To conclude a series of activities designed for a leadership seminar, participants engage in a trust building activity.
Shmoop
ELA - Literacy.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.1
Understanding, analyzing, citing, linking—the four steps required by CC ELA Literacy Standard RH.11-12.1. Enjoy the humor of the explanations of these steps as you examine the suggestions for Common Core designed activities related to...