Connect poetry to a naturally kid-friendly topic: ghosts! Draw on your class's prior knowledge of the paranormal to help them access the classic poem "Haunted House" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. After a fun warm-up activity describing...

Clarify, connect, evaluate, predict, question. Laminate and display these colorful posers about the classroom to remind readers of the five basic strategies for comprehending all sorts of text. 

Using either online worksheets or print outs, 12th graders practice expository text comprehension skills by answering multiple choice questions, completing a vocabulary matching activity, and completing a crossword puzzle. This is...

Learners are introduced to the topic of legends. Using the text of Irving's novels, they gather information on different cultures. They practice using new vocabulary and their listening skills. They retell the stories in chronlogical order.

Students complete research to enhance their reading of "The Grapes of Wrath". Using the text, they identify and locate cultural artifacts and discuss their symbolic connotations. As a class, they create a museum exhibit of the various...

Reinforce sentence styles with this lesson plan, which prompts young grammarians to build complex and compound-complex sentence structures. They respond to non-print text and identify subordinators as parts of speech procedure. They...

Have your scholars read a handout related to the foreign trade market and how there is an exchange of goods. They read the information as a research assignment and make connections as to how the market fits together.

Tenth graders explore Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. After reading specific scenes, they brainstorm and discuss free will. Students observe a clip from the Dr. Phil television show entitled, "Afraid to Age" and make connections from the...

Second graders interact with the story of Alexander's horrible day by connecting it to their lives. They practice predicting, writing paragraphs, reading aloud, discussing his problems, making a card to cheer him up, and designing a pair...

A Taste of Honey offers learners a chance to practice with unknown words and context clues. Choose several vocabulary words to focus on as you read the picture book, or use the ones provided here. Pre-teach the words and have...

Asking questions about what you're reading is an effective way to connect with the text. After kids read passages from Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter, they identify questions about the passages as Right There, Think and...

Set the stage for Nightjohn, Gary Paulsen's young adult novel about slavery set shortly before the Civil War, by asking readers to indicate whether they agree or disagree with several statements that are connected to issues...

Young scholars connect the symbols from the design of the United States Mint Fifty State Quarters Program to our country's history in this five-lesson unit. The culture, unique heritage, and geography of the individual states are probed.

Hit all the basics with this lesson, focusing on weather, greetings, and dates! Start by singing a weather related song ("Quel temps fait-il by Barbara MacArthur is suggested), and then read a story about getting ready for school. The...

Students pretend they are water droplets traveling through the water cycle. Using their text, they discover the steps in the cycle and the different paths water can take. They write a report about their journey through the water cycle...

Lesson 2 is part of a twenty-two instructional activity unit on boat safety and water sports. The focus in this instructional activity is on personal flotation devices. There are reasons why the law requires PFDs. Click on the resource...

Tenth graders define the term slang, explaining its various social, historical, and racial contexts, so as to articulate when it can be appropriately used as a means of effective communication. They use their own personal slang lexicon,...

Create baseball cards for literary characters with this lesson plan. It introduces students to baseball cards, their components (stats, picture, etc.), and prompts them to draft and publish their own cards based on figures from...

Are you teaching Modernism to your class? Connect different areas of artistic expression in the Modernist Era. Learners read T.S. Eliot, view art by Pablo Picasso, and listen to a Modernist musical composition. This final assignment is...

Teach your English learners about theme through this found poem project. Class members read two versions of O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi": the original version and a synopsis. After learning about themes and connecting theme to their...

Pull quotes from a text and craft responses to the quotes you chose. First, read a  short excerpt from Mary Claire Wilfert's oral history. Then, read the contemporary poem "Robert's Cove," pulling quotes and writing responses as...

One of the keys for successful teaching is connecting curriculum to real-life experiences. This instructional activity on blogging does this, by making writing, revising, and publishing a reality. Pupils create a character for a story,...

Delve into persuasive writing techniques. The presentation has learners list reasons for taking a particular position, practice identifying words used in persuasive text, and write an example of this type of writing. This is a useful...

Are you a good egg? Learners begin a farm-to-table lesson by acting out verbs in groups to demonstrate the egg production process, and then research the steps using online resources. Several excellent videos are linked through the...