Roald Dahl
The Twits - Mrs Twit Gets a Stretching
A cork, a rubber snake, and a bucket of mud may not seem like the best materials for washing a car, but they are in The Twits. The fifth lesson in an 11-part unit designed to accompany The Twits by Roald Dahl has readers role play...
College Board
2011 AP® English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions Form B
Strong writers support their points with direct evidence and details. A series of free-response questions from the 2011 AP® English Language and Composition exam require the use of details to obtain a good score. The first prompt...
US National Archives
WWII: Western Europe 1939-45 – End of the War
You are Winston Churchill, and on May 9th, 1945, you receive millions of grateful cards and telegrams. How do you respond? High schoolers put themselves in the Prime Minister's chair with an activity that prompts them to respond to a...
EngageNY
Building Background Knowledge: The Dinka Tribe (“Loss of Culturally Vital Cattle Leaves Dinka Tribe Adrift in Refugee Camps” Excerpt 1)
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...
National Endowment for the Humanities
A Defense of the Electoral College
Each presidential election year, the debate about the electoral college rages. Michael C. Maibach's "A Defense of the Electoral College" offers young political scientists an opportunity to examine a reasoned argument for why the...
Kenan Fellows
Unit 4: Bioethics and the Future of Biotechnology
What's the future of biotechnology? Explore a hot topic in the fourth and final unit in a series of Biotechnology lessons. Learners develop an understanding of the many issues in bioethics, then create an argument for or against the role...
Literacy Design Collaborative
Analyzing Language through Dialogue and Internal Monologue in "The Scarlet Ibis"
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...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Look at me!
Third graders write an autobiography and use pictures of themselves from past and present to illustrate it. They take pictures with a digital camera, scan pictures, and add them to a document.
Curated OER
Summary and "The Fallacy of Success"
Suggested to accompany a class reading of The Great Gatsby, this plan begins with a discussion emphasizing the reputation of Vanderbilt University. Then, after the class has a working knowledge of the wealth associated with the school,...
EngageNY
Inferring Laurence Yep’s Perspective on the Police, from the Crime in the Neighborhood Excerpt of The Lost Garden
Gist get to the point! Pupils read another excerpt from The Lost Garden, author Laurence Yep's autobiography. Working with partners, scholars annotate the text to look for the gist and record unfamiliar vocabulary in their word...
Alabama Learning Exchange
"Batty" About Bats!! (Writing)
Young writers identify the characteristics of a bat and write an essay about bats. They construct a book about bats that includes information that they have learned through print materials and online resources.
Curated OER
The Camelot Times: Writing a Newspaper
Students create and publish a newspaper based on Arthurian literature and history. After completing a class read of "King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table," students work in groups to write an article based on their...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Time to Tell Time
Learners demonstrate how to tell time using an analog clock. In this time measurement lesson, students read the book Clocks and More Clocks and use analog clocks to demonstrate the time that the teacher called out.
Curated OER
Exploring Owls
What can young scientists discover from dissecting an owl pellet? Explore the owl food chain, beginning with an introduction to these predatory birds. Suggested strategies here include creating a podcast and purchasing a poster, however...
Curated OER
Responding to Literature: James and the Giant Peach
Fifth grade reader/writers create an alternate ending to an episode in Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach in which our protagonist "loses" the chance to magically solve all his problems. Prompts students not only to write creatively...
Curated OER
Fast Fact-Finding
Ever wonder why the sky changes color so often? Readers examine an informational excerpt from John Farndon's How the Earth Works. They underline key points as they read and then answer five response questions. Prompts review main...
Curated OER
Analyzing Atmosphere: Macbeth Murder Scene and Dagger Speech
Shakespeare's Macbeth (Act II, Scenes I and II) lacks explicit details of the murder of King Duncan, yet the author creates an atmosphere that allows us to visualize the event. Readers interpret the "Dagger Speech" by writing stage...
Curated OER
Annotated Bibliographies
What is an annotated bibliography? While not usually required until college, introducing your juniors and seniors to this type of document will prepare them for their collegiate careers. The term is defined, and the three elements of an...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Writing Thank-You Notes
Students write thank-you notes using the writing process. They draft, revise, edit, and publish their thank-you notes and use a computer to view examples of thank-you notes and insert graphics into their own published thank-you notes.
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension: History of the Periodic Table
Although the article that launches this lesson plan is about the history of the Periodic Table, the objective is reading comprehension. Using the eight-page informational text, learners answer five comprehension questions and craft one...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2: Unit 1, Lesson 5
Eager readers have waited a long time, very patiently, for a set of literary analysis lessons that connect text structure to the work's central idea. As ninth graders continue reading "The Tell-Tale Heart," they focus on the central...
University of North Carolina
Poetry Explications
Explication may sound like a fancy word, but it's just a fancy way to say analysis. Using a handout on poetry explications, part of a larger series on specific writing assignments, writers learn how to break down and analyze a poem. The...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 3, Unit 2, Lesson 7
Now that learners have honed their inquiry-based projects down to their strongest few questions, they can conduct independent research. High schoolers pursue answers to their inquiries while assessing sources, establishing a research...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Writing Word Equations
Students explore the concept of chemical formulas. In this chemical formula lesson, students watch a video about balancing chemical equations. Students conduct an experiment using silver nitrate and sodium phosphate. ...