Readers of Dandelion Wine work in groups to develop questions on four levels (right there, think and search, the author and you, and on my own) about Chapter 34 of Ray Bradbury's reflection on the joys of summer. Groups jigsaw and...

Cover Freytag's Triangle and examine Anton Chekhov's "The Bet" in this third lesson plan in a series of fourteen based around short stories. Learners take a quiz and discuss Freytag's triangle. They apply the triangle to "The Bet" and...

To make vocabulary words drawn from So Far from the Bamboo Grove memorable, class members select a word from the provided list and incorporate this word in a joke, story, or performance.

Your class can practice communicating clearly. They practice listening and speaking through games such asTelephone and a social scavenger hunt. This is a solid lesson that helps apply good communication skills.

How far do your pupils think we should go in the name of science? Class members respond to questions relating to chapter three of Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science and then participate in a four corners...

Develop an online newspaper covering the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The class publishes their newspaper on the school's Web site and analyze both primary and secondary sources.

A delicate topic is the focus of this lesson. Discuss what people can do to reduce the risk of sexual assault, as well as what a person should do if he or she is sexually assaulted. This is not any easy topic to discuss in a classroom,...

Your budding scholars spent the day in the library looking for a topic for their research essay, and now they are all in tears because there is too much information available on their topics. Wipe those tears away with the ideas and...

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Academics learn strategies to share their opinions and agree or disagree with others in a respectful manner. The resource provides scenarios to help individuals form opinions and share them with...

Combining a close reading of a classic American text with the study of history can be a very powerful strategy, and this is most certainly the case with this resource using Edward Everett Hale's The Man without a Country. Consider themes...

It's all about perspective! Using the resource, scholars read a third excerpt from Laurence Yep's autobiography, The Lost Garden. As they read, individuals complete graphic organizers using clues from the text to infer the author's...

The proof is in the reading. Using the informative resource, scholars read a second article about either Althea Gibson or Roberto Clemente. As they read, they continue adding reasons and evidence to their graphic organizers to show how...

Ninth graders consider how perceived standards of beauty influence body image as well as the relationship between body image and eating disorders. The class brainstorms traits the media presents as beauty standards for males and females,...

With all the stuff available online, good essays are just a click away. But talk about tracking! Writers beware! New tech can now identify plagiarism, and the consequences of presenting someone else's work as your own are severe. Here's...

Two stories by Kate Chopin provide high school freshmen with an opportunity to reflect on the importance of the perspective from which a story is told. Class members read "The Story of an Hour" and a passage from The Awakening, then...

Always try to make an excellent first impression. As scholars begin to write their argumentative essays, they learn the importance of a good introduction. Writers also begin to add in-text citations to their papers. After reading a model...

What do modern voices sound like? Scholars explore the topic, reading two concrete poems from John Grandit's Blue Lipstick and analyzing them using a graphic organizer. Next, they read a third poem and work with partners to look for...

Was the Emancipation Proclamation a revolutionary document or just a military strategy? It proclaimed that all those enslaved in Confederate states would be "forever free." Logistically, though, it did little. The order, however,...

Ponyboy, Johnny, Winston, and Darry come alive in a lesson that focuses on the details S. E. Hinton uses to characterize the Greasers and the Socials. The class first observes the actors' words; the thoughts revealed their effect on...

"Yuns betta outten the lights!" Colloquial language is the focus of a lesson that asks middle schoolers to consider the pros and cons of using idioms. They read articles, match expressions with their meaning and place of origin, and...

What exactly is the fiscal cliff? What are the effects of changing income tax rates and payroll tax rates? Your learners will begin by reading news articles and examining graphs illustrating the "Bush tax cuts" of 2001 and 2003. They...

Hold measurements to a different metric. Class members convert the measurements of a dog's tumor to explain the size to its owner. Using cards, learners match metric measurements with their English equivalents. They then read articles to...

Small efforts can have global impacts. Learners use data to analyze public health impacts on climate change. They read articles that present relative data about climate change and use the data to make conclusions about the impact on...

The big idea in the last lesson in the Health Smart series is that individuals must practice emotional first aid, that just as we take care of physical injuries, we must take care of emotional injuries. Scholars watch a short video and...