Wrap up your unit on The Cay with an engaging argumentative writing assignment. Writers must decide if they believe The Cay should be banned. The resource includes links to several articles, which have been addressed and examined in...

Use a fill-in-the-blank lesson plan template to enhance your guided reading lesson plans with details surrounding decoding strategies, fluency and phrasing, vocabulary strategies, comprehension, and more! 

An inaugural address represents the first moments of a new beginning. Using John F. Kennedy's speech as a model for guided practice, groups examine the ingredients of an inaugural address. Individuals then repeat the analysis...

Foster's Rule? Allopatric speciation? After watching West of the West's documentary Island Rotation, class members use Venn diagrams to compare endemic species on the Channel Islands with mainland related species. They then create a...

After watching a short online film about a soccer player Nolusindiso Plaatje and his help with the Grassroot Soccer program, a community education effort aimed at spreading awareness about HIV/AIDS prevention, use a lesson...

After watching part of a Club Write Kids video and discussing the editing process, each group of learners writes a letter to a favorite author. They ask for a copy of a page of manuscript that has gone through the editing process. Prior...

After watching the documentary Dark Water about a traditional Chumash ceremony and reading a Chumash origin story, viewers are asked to create a coat of arms and to craft an essay that details a family tradition or their own origin story.

What could be better than a play within a play? A study guide for "The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of 'A Christmas Carol'" has theater-goers share their thoughts on the comedic...

Should the excavation of what is believed to be the cave of the Lone Woman of San Nicholas Island be allowed to continue? As a practice exercise designed to prepare pupils for a timed writing exam, individuals read two Los Angeles...

West of the West's documentary Arlington Springs Man introduces viewers to the remarkable finds on Santa Rosa Island. Archaeologist have discovered on this small island that is part of the Channel island chain, human and pygmy mammoth...

After watching Treasure in the Sea, a documentary about Channel Islands National Park and the video First Contact, about the voyage of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo to the Channel islands, groups research and then compare the...

As a practice writing test, fourth graders use the West of the West's documentary Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island and two print resources as source materials for an informative article that identifies information that is...

Discover the lovely story of Raimundo Arruda Sobrinho with your class. Over the course of the lesson, pupils practice descriptive writing, write short narratives, collaborate in small groups, watch a powerful short film about Raimundo,...

Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...

How much do you really know about our planet? Middle schoolers build up their prior knowledge about Earth, its placement in the solar system, its composition, and important geological vocabulary with an introductory earth science lesson.

Make a study of the First Amendment and its relationship to freedom. Pupils rewrite the amendment and discuss the central idea before focusing on a specific phrase. After discussing, class members write a journal entry about the included...

Explore non-violent protest in this social values and world history lesson. After viewing the movie Gandhi, and discussing important events in Gandhi's life, young orators write a speech defending Gandhi's position on the value of...

Twelfth graders use computers and the Internet to research a specified area, word processors to prepare an essay, a digital camera, a video camera gather visuals, and a scanner to add visuals to a PowerPoint presentation as they discover...

An excellent lesson plan on the classic book, Where the Red Fern Grows. Learners view the W. Wilson Rawls website and engage in a series of activities generated by the website. They write in their reflective journals, watch a video, and...

What are the different types of bullying? What are the impacts? What is the role of the bystander in bullying? What can be done to stop bullying? These questions are addressed by the activities included in a workshop designed for middle...

After viewing the West of the West's documentary Cache, individuals craft either a newspaper article chronicling the discovery of the cache on San Nicolas Island, a historical narrative of the placement of the cache in the cliff side, or...

How many oceans can you name? First, have learners try to name as many oceans as they can, and then have them locate and identify the oceans on a world map. They create a recognizable ocean animal using poster board and tissue paper....

An exciting twist on the study of the classical hero and the heroic quest! Using film to explore modern-day tales of heroes, the resource contains complete, ready-to-use lesson plans for as many as twelve days of instruction. Throughout...

Archaeologists have discovered a cache of Native American relics. They want to preserve these relics by removing them from the rapidly eroding site to a lab where they can be studied. Native American traditions demand that the items...