Students explore reading comprehension strategies. They discuss the story-grammar strategy. Students discuss the importance of comprehension. They discuss questions they should ask while reading a text. Students read a story and stop to...

Students explore the concept of theme. In this fairy tales lesson, students read several tales and complete hands-on activities, art projects, and dramatic play that lead to an awareness of the themes of the tales.

Students explore what a folktale consists of as it relates to oral tradition. In this folktale lesson, students are told the African folktale, Why the Sun is Lives in the Sky and make personal inferences about what the folktale is...

Learners are introduced to the characteristics of an autobiography. For each author, they research their life and works and discuss why it reflects different time periods of African-Americans. In groups, they brainstorm characteristics...

Students explore the concept of artha. In this Hinduism instructional activity, students read, "Seven Ways to Greet a Neighbor," and "Eight Rupees." Students discuss artha in light of the readings completed as part of the instructional...

Students view examples of movies and create a movie trailer for an original thematic movie. In this fiction elements lesson, students complete creative event entries and view an abbreviated movie trailer from Alice. Students watch The...

Pupils study several of Marc Chagall's paintings with an emphasis on his use of symbolic color and of space. They explore learn basic techniques for using Scholar colored pencils, and create an artwork using a baseball theme.

Here’s a clever way to combine language arts and social studies. Shakespeare’s The Tempest is believed to have been inspired by the wreck of the Sea Venture on Bermuda in 1609. The class views a brief scene from Castaway in which Tom...

When you are blind, your hands become your eyes, so learning how to discriminate between various objects through touch is a very important skill. Make a memory game by gluing common items onto cardstock. The kids feel, identify, and...

Students read and analyze a poem about a speaker's posthumous view of war, assess the purpose of an author's note and evaluate the effect of the point of view on the reader's response. They work in groups to discuss and analyze the poem.

Students use Aesop's fables to examine theme and topic. In this theme and topic lesson, students read different fables and discussing as a class. After hearing more stories students work in pairs to determine the theme or topic.

Students discuss being a friend and sing songs about friendship.  In this friendship lesson, students listen to When Turtle Grew Feathers.  Students  answer questions about the friends in the story. Students discuss the...

First graders compare versions of the Three Little Pigs.  In this comparison lesson, 1st graders read several version of the Three Little Pigs and compare the situations, characters, settings, solutions, emotions and costumes. ...

Students research various cultural and religious festivals celebrated and observed by Australians, describing common elements and identifying adaptations that have been made for life in Australia.

Students view more video clips of Shakespeare's plays. They answer comprehension questions over the video. They are introduced to the language Shakespeare used as well.

Students read a Japanese Noh play and discuss its structure and traditional characters. They choose a short myth and write a Noh play based on it.

Upper graders and middle schoolers engage in a lesson on community. A class discussion kicks off the lesson. Pupils share things that they do as community service after school or on weekends. They imagine an ideal community they would...

Fourth graders analyze the use of transitions in text. In this transitions lesson, 4th graders determine how and why a transition is used at a specific time in a piece of writing. They show transitions by using movements before...

Young scholars investigate the various architectural styles of Arkansas. They read a handout, complete a worksheet, view images of architectural styles, and take photos and write descriptions of five style elements they observe in their...

Tenth graders explore the concept of censorship through a reading of Fahrenheit 451. They discuss the issue and its relation to contemporary society. Students work in groups to debate the pros and cons of censorship in our society.

Fourth graders work in cooperative groups to create a ditty to teach the characteristics that distinguish literary forms to younger students. The ditty is performed before the class.

Students interpret and identify the elements of folktales, with an emphasis on tall tales, in this lesson. Students utilize brainstorming techniques to list ways people communicate. Students also read and create a time line and present...

Eleventh graders divide into research groups and select a topic to pursue from a list that ranged from historical sites to local ghost stories to the nearby aluminum plant.

Students explore problems and solutions in literature. In this literature lesson, students identify problems and solutions in short guided and independent reading samples. Students also discuss characterization techniques used to develop...