Why didn't Rapunzel's hair stop growing?  Why did it take the fairy godmother so long to intervene in Cinderella's affairs? Young writers consider unanswered questions like these and compose news articles investigating the true...

Here is a template offering a comprehensive outline of ACT skill categories, what standards are expected to be mastered, and blank spaces for you to include how you plan to address those standards within your curriculum.

Students write about main characters. In this dramatic writing lesson, students brainstorm character ideas. Students create actions and give the character a voice. Students act out the scene in groups and create a final draft.

Incorporate technology into a literature lesson with an innovative language arts lesson. Middle schoolers read an electronic version of original stories or fairy tales, and after determining the point of view, rewrite the tale from...

How well do your learners really know the characters in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising? A biopoem activity prompts readers to investigate the characters and their traits. Line by line, writers add the characters'...

A activity allows you to go back in time and see the big bang actually happen. Bazinga! In reality, pupils research the Big Bang Theory and theorize what it would be like to go back in time and see it happen. There are four...

The ambiguity in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre makes the novel a perfect choice for a shared inquiry discussion. Readers respond to open-ended questions with evidence drawn directly from the text. 

It's task time! Scholars complete the final lesson plan of the unit by completing a performance task. Readers begin in groups, working on a task card. Once complete, they move to an independent task, writing responses to a prompt about...

Students complete various activities related to the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." They participate in a shared reading activity, read and write a sentence for each day of the week, draw a picture of the caterpillar eating one of...

Students become familiar with oceanography terms by writing an oceanography horror story.

Make The Taming of the Shrew modern and relevant with this outline. Small groups can choose from a list of suggested scenes and update with modern language and settings before acting them out. Great questions refine writing and...

Experiment with multimedia storytelling. After watching a segment of American Family, first, middle and high schoolers tell a story about their families, clarifying the setting, characters, and script. They work on setting...

Students study the concept of the westward expansion. In this exploration of the western U.S. lesson, students participate in different activities that explain economic hardships, jobs, and land opportunities. Students describe...

Explore women's history through films and filmmaking. An innovative research project prompts class members to create their own screenplay about a figure in women's history. After outlining their characters, settings, and plots, young...

Students write a non-chronological report about wolves. They read and discuss wolf fact cards in small groups, complete a KWL chart, observe the teacher model the steps of writing a report, and conduct research and write an original...

Students outline the major events, mat??riel, and setting of a war or conflict. They develop a computer game narrative that draws on these historically accurate details.

Double click that mouse because you just found an amazing lesson! This cross-curricular Ornithology lesson incorporates literature, writing, reading informational text, data collection, scientific inquiry, Internet research, art, and...

The Summer of the Swans, by Betsy Byars, is a 160-page chapter book about a family going through a difficult time. Complement your reading of Byars' book with this detailed outline of each chapter. Every section includes comprehension...

A handy guide offers high schoolers support as they read the American novel, The Great Gatsby. Complete with a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, a timeline of the Roaring Twenties, discussion questions about the novel, and more, this...

Third graders review the importance of good study habits as a skill necessary for success in school. They focus on their goals and discuss how this would help to improve grades. They determine how much an F weighs their grade down.

This unit introduces book clubs/literature circles to lower elementary classes, but could be adapted to higher grades. It outlines the anticipatory activity that includes a WebQuest, a discussion to clarify questions about the unit,...

Putting together an interesting story can be hard, but this set of worksheets will guide your writers into the depths of their own creativity as they characterize both their main character and villain. Using humor to keep learners...

Students explore the attributes of American tall tales. In this folklore lesson, students read several tall tales, describe the elements of tall tales, and then use hyperbole to write their own tall tales.

Tenth graders write an autobiography about their future.  In this career education lesson, 10th graders write about the future based on their career goals. Students troubleshoot possible obstacles to fulfilling a life...