Reading, writing, and rings! A lesson from NASA combines space science with authentic reading and writing tasks. Included in this lesson are pre-reading activities, four mini informational booklets on Saturn, a structured...

Explore the origin of political parties in the United States. Learners work in groups to read and analyze copies of the "Report on Manufactures" written by Alexander Hamilton. Then, they complete a worksheet comparing the Federalists to...

Learners analyze people's choices from different points of view. They read different scenarios and explain how they would react personally in that situation. Then they analyze what they would do in another character's position and...

Develop an environmental case study! Elementary learners discover how a case study is used as an analysis tool. The goal of this activity is to show pupils how techniques of persuasion (including background, supporting evidence,...

The Grapes of Wrath may be the most famous novel set during the Dust Bowl, but what other stories cover the same time? The unit focuses on the Karen Hesse novel Out of the Dust. Learners keep a timeline of the Dust Bowl, maintain a...

Text annotations help readers track essential ideas. Pupils continue reading and annotating an informational article about Sudanese tribes, connecting it with A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They also begin writing about their...

Get deep! Teach scholars how to make connections between texts to deepen their understanding of a topic. Using the resource, pupils read and annotate a short informational text about Sudan's Civil War and refugee crisis. Next, they...

Half and half. Split the class in half to gain a full understanding of sidebars. Pupils work in groups to discuss sidebars in text. Half of the groups read Seriously Sick, and the other half reads Killer Genes. They read using...

Young historians practice in-depth, quality analysis of primary source texts in this three-lesson unit, which examines excerpts from the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Caleb...

It's time to party like it's 1899! Incorporate a research-based celebration of the Victorian Era into your unit on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. After learners read the novella or view a production of the play, they craft a...

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...

Groups research participatory democracies and compare the role and rights of citizens in ancient history with those in recent U.S. history. Guided by a series of questions, individuals compose a persuasive essay in which they discuss the...

How can something be true even if it didn't happen? Invite your classes to investigate the truths found in the world of magical realism as they analyze short stories, poems, informational texts, video, and art from this genre.

I can't wait to try this activity with my class. It's versatile and could be modified to fit any character analysis lesson. To analyze characters thoroughly, learners create life boxes. Each box will pertain to a character from any...

Designed to help readers recognize the point of view of the author of a primary source documents and analyze how that point of view influences the reliability of a text, young historians examine two personal letters, one...

Lead discussion and thoughtful analysis as pupils view Rabbit Proof Fence, a drama based on true story about three aboriginal girls who ran away from Western Australia to return to their Aboriginal families in 1931. Here you'll...

Watching is not the same as seeing. Transform viewers from passive watchers to active students of film with this 34-page packet, filled with lessons and activities that use Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to examine the technology, the...

Did the United States Constitution uphold the institution of slavery, or did it help to destroy it? Young historians study Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution and evaluate the rights of slaveowners as they compared to...

Picture that! Pupils view photographs of the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, discussing what they know and wonder about each image. Then, scholars watch a short video about the historic event and complete a KWL...

The Boston Massacre may be an iconic event in American history, but perhaps the British soldiers had another point of view. Using primary sources, including reports from Boston newspapers and secondary sources from the British...

Sometimes a whole story can change based on the perspective of the person telling it. Practice identifying and analyzing point of view in various reading passages and writing assignments with a language arts packet, complete with Common...

The New York Times' Learning Network provides great lessons! This one uses articles from the paper to help readers understand homonyms like mail (verb and noun). It also includes an exercise in reading informational text. Links to the...

Readers apply Sigmund Freud's theories of the unconscious mind and the psychological approach to literary criticism to analyze and evaluate the relationship between two characters in A Separate Peace.

The point of view in a story can dramatically change the story itself. Focus on finding the points of view in various reading passages with a language arts packet, which includes fiction and nonfiction text.