An authentic and engaging way to practice literacy skills, this activity calls for young language arts pupils to conduct interviews with classmates and family members. First, pupils watch as the teacher models the interview process with...

Social media has changed the news publishing process, so how does it affect school news publications? Lesson nine in a 16-part series titled The Social Media Toolbox explores the traditional publishing roles through the lens of social...

It's all a process. Scholars watch as the teacher models a peer feedback process. They then carry out the process on their own using the Sustainable Water Management Peer Feedback Form. As a bonus, individuals then participate in an MLA...

Begin writing personal narratives in this writing instructional activity. Junior high writers start by writing a journal about their favorite holiday. They read a book at their skill level and use graphic organizers to record their ideas...

Explore expository writing and using precise language in this descriptive paragraph writing lesson. Learners brainstorm prior knowledge about the changing seasons in Ohio. They describe seasonal items, view seasonal pictures from...

Dim the lights, take a deep breath, and press play to explore the emotions and memories that music elicits. Class members begin using relaxation techniques designed to create a positive listening experience. As music plays, learners...

Scholars discuss the many ways they use persuasion in their everyday lives and brainstorm specific ideas for encouraging someone to do something. With the list of persuasive techniques they made, young writers complete a graphic...

There's nothing like the prospect of writing a scary story to get your middle schoolers' writing juices flowing! In the lesson presented here, pupils listen to scary short stories read to them by the teacher. Then, a discussion ensues...

There's nothing like a provocative image to inspire a creative writing session. In the language arts lesson presented here, middle schoolers bring in digital photos of scary objects, such as a big spider, or a hornet's nest. The pictures...

A delightful lesson on poetry is here for you and your middle schoolers. Learners are instructed to write a Halloween poem. They get to choose the age range for the audience of the poem. So, it may be scary (for older kids), or humorous...

Primary sources are valuable for understanding the context of historical events, but the diction and dialect in these documents can be difficult to understand. Middle and high schoolers participation in a transcription process in which...

Build scholars' ability to understand their own values and learn about World War II at the same time. Scholars write poetry and discuss identity and place in depth with an in-depth social studies resource. 

Entrance essays are the ultimate sales pitch! Show your seniors how to market themselves in the first of six college and career readiness lesson plans. Pupils discover the do's and don'ts of writing personal statements through research,...

Here is a unique and innovative game which will help your charges learn the important skill of proofreading and editing their own writing. The class is divided up into groups, and each group uses actual samples of writing from students...

Discover how to use prefixes and suffixes to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. The group views a jovial video on the topic, and then they create a chart of prefix and suffix meanings to identify the meanings of words in a social...

Examine stories with a moral in a character development instructional activity. The class reads a short story written by Benjamin Franklin in which he pays too much for a toy whistle. Individuals then make text-to-self connections and...

Break down the parts of argumentative writing with a critical thinking activity. High schoolers read an article of your (or their choice), and use a graphic organizer to delineate the ways the author structures his or her arguments.

Reading and writing take on a whole different meaning in math class. Young mathematicians learn to read verbal phrases by focusing on operation words. They write equivalent algebraic expressions for both mathematical and contextual...

Learners complete the end of unit assessment by writing an opinion essay about how Jackie Robinson changed America. They use evidence from the text, Promises to Keep, to support their opinions.

Through direct instruction, the teacher demonstrates how to identify the main idea and supporting details of a text when creating a summary. As a class, read a paragraph, highlighting relevant information and crossing out extraneous...

Class members investigate the different roles associated with video production. Then, they create a crash course booklet that details what they have learned about the different roles: video production, scouting locations and set up,...

You may be able to see patterns visually, but mathematics quantifies them. Here learners find correlation in scatterplots and write equations to represent that relationship. They fit a line to the data, find two points on the line, and...

Introduce class members to Gandhi's non-violent, non-cooperative ideas with Richard Attenborough's 1982 bio-epic. The film traces the experiences that gave shape to Gandhi's ideas and the actions that eventually lead to the end of...

Scholars write letters as if they were someone who heard the story of John Brown's raid. The resource, a standalone, covers information from primary sources that is important to West Virginian history: the Harpers Ferry Letters.