Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...

Take a close look at a number of newspapers with collection of lessons and activities. Using a poster (which can be found under the materials tab), learners examine the hard copy of a local newspaper. This leads into an exploration of...

Explore the effect of outliers through an analysis of mean, median, and standard deviation. Your classes examine and compare these measures for two groups. They must make sense of a group that has a higher mean but lower median compared...

When given too much data to simply memorize, it helps to sort it into manageable groups. The second lesson in the six-part series of Cosmic Chemistry challenges groups of pupils to take a large amount of data and figure out how to best...

The higher the number of letters in the final word for the National Spelling Bee, the higher the number of people killed by venomous spiders. Obviously, those two facts correlate, but no causation exists. Scholars view data based on...

Tenth graders complete a variety of activities related to the first two chapters of the book The Outsiders. They define metaphor, simile, idiom, and hyperbole, and take a vocabulary pre-quiz. In small groups, they write a character...

Can a neon sign be considered art? Kids consider two different works that use neon text as the basis for conveying artistic social messages. They then analyze a truism from Jenny Holzer's web site that holds meaning to them personally....

Through this exercise, high schoolers identify character traits present in Romeo and Juliet. They listen to an excerpt from "The Office of Christian Parents: Showing How Children Are to be Governed" and participate in a Socratic...

Teach your upper graders how to use an idea web to develop a topic for writing. After reading a variety of stories about friendship (a list of stories with the theme of friendship is included), model using an idea web. Class members...

If you're looking to set your class up for writing effective arguments, try out this idea. While originally created with freedom as a guiding idea, the activity could easily be adapted for other themes. As a class, create a chart of...

What does it mean to say that a right is unalienable? How did the founding fathers convey this revolutionary concept in the Declaration of Independence? Engage in a close reading and analysis of the Declaration of Independence, and...

Take a look at Horace's "Ode 1.5" from Carmina in depth with an analysis instructional activity. Included on the first page is the original Latin version of the verses as well as a literal translation. Pupils respond to questions...

Here you'll find a fine teacher reference for presenting the film Thirteen Days, a dramatic interpretation of the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Kennedy administration. It includes a brief description of the film, learning...

Wind turbines, daylight savings time, noise pollution, social problems. To develop close reading skills, high schoolers examine pairs of articles presenting opposing viewpoints of the same topics and respond to questions that...

State the population of the state. Pupils research census data on the total population, the number of children their age, and the number of children of the same age and gender in their states. They write these numbers in standard,...

Take heart! Here's a lesson that will encourage learners to notice details. After listening to Sarah Vaughan singing "My Funny Valentine" and noting how the word heart relates to Valentine's Day, scholars observe a human heart image....

What elements are needed to have a revolution? How do historical revolutions from across the globe and generations compare with one another? This is an excellent activity that incorporates group work, source analysis, and an engaging...

Invite your pupils to express their understanding of a novel through a collaborative video project. Groups choose a novel from those you have studied in class, select four scenes, storyboard the scenes, film the scenes, edit the film,...

Titration experiments don't have to give your high schoolers a stomachache. Study the ways to titrate an acide with a base in an engaging science experiment, which involves creating solutions and performing titrations. Pupils...

Whether you need resources for reading comprehension, literary analysis, phonics, vocabulary, or text features, an extensive packet of worksheets is sure to fit your needs. Based on a fifth-grade curriculum but applicable to any level of...

Discover relationships between linear and nonlinear functions. Initially, a set of data seems linear, but upon further exploration, pupils realize the data can model an infinite number of functions. Scholars use multiple representations...

James Hurst's short story "The Scarlet Ibis" provides eighth graders with an opportunity to sharpen their literary analysis skills. After a close reading of the text, class members highlight and annotate parts of the dialogue and...

A series of activities based on Elizabeth George Speare's The Sign of The Beaver takes your class through vocabulary, reading comprehension, and literary analysis. A good packet or collection of assignments for a reading circle.

Collaborate with your class after reading William Shakespeare's The Tempest with a group labeling activity. As you note key concepts or words from the play on the board, class members suggest associations and connections...