Family and friendship are two very important themes of the historical fiction novel The Orphan of Ellis Island by Elvira Woodruff. From video clips and writing prompts to reader's theater and family interviews, this resource...

Reading and comprehending a poem is a lot different than doing the same for a piece of fiction or an informational text. As part of a sample English language arts examination, readers put their skills to the test by reading passages in...

Students investigate the concept of the number one million. For this number concepts lesson, students read the book How Much is a Million? and brainstorm questions, such as "how many leaves are on a tree" and "how many hairs are on your...

What would a main idea be without important details? Readers use a graphic organizer to record key details from an informational text (a fiction text would also work). Review main idea as a concept before beginning, asking scholars...

Bring history to life through literature. The first in a series of three challenge activities designed to accompany Theme 5: One Land, Many Trails does just that through unique projects connected to historical fiction and nonfiction...

The Yukon provides plenty of opportunity for adventure. A study guide for The Call of the Wild by Jack London, also the author of White Fang, helps readers navigate the novel which is set in Yukon, Canada. Chapter summaries give a...

Ninth graders examine how literature connects to real-life and see how irony aids in the development of theme. They read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, and discuss elements of foreshadowing and situational irony. Then learners will write...

Young historians take a look at the age of gladiators, and the cultural atmosphere present when they staged their epic battles. Pupils pretend to be reporters and write newspaper articles about one of the events they stage. Then,...

This is a fantastic resource designed for learners to envision what it was like for the three million African-Americans who migrated to urban industrial centers of the northern United States between 1910 and 1940. After reading a...

Take a walk on the rhetorical side with this presentation, which discusses three styles of prose: tough (ethos), sweet (pathos), and stuffy (logos). The slide show provides thorough definitions and examples of each style, as well as...

Help your class see the connection between events in Alex Haley's story "My Furthest-Back Person" with this awesome graphic organizer. Individuals write a brief description of 10 major plot events in a series of boxes. The first and last...

What are the important character traits of a good military leader? Individuals ponder this question before reading Orson Scott Card's science fiction novel, Ender's Game. After individuals rank a series of qualities,...

Ansible. Hegemony. Candor. Readers of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game create word squares for vocabulary words drawn from this award-winning science fiction novel.

After responding to a series of prompts on an anticipation guide, readers of Unwind craft five predictions about what will happen in Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel.    

Readers of Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel, Unwind, record what they know, what they want to know, how the will find answers to the questions, on a KWHL chart.

Japan's Taisho Period was a time when authors like Akutagawa and other Japanese modernists began to experiment with point of view and literary form, making the literature produced during this time period a natural choice for teaching...

After interviewing an immigrant about their voyage to the United States and first impressions of the country, young learners create a fictional series of journal entries and design an iMovie depicting their interviewee's story.

Learners hear wedding bells in this problem set, as they help a fictional bride plan the centerpieces for her wedding reception. Algebra is married to geometry as volume, aesthetics, and budgeting all come into play. Learners are...

Take a walk on the wild side with a project about animal habitats. After kids observe a chosen animal in its home, they describe the animal's food and water sources, shelter, and how it raises its young. They then write a short fictional...

Investigate the growth rates of alien animals. Pupils study fictional animals from another planet to determine how much they grow per year. The investigators plot the growth of their animals over a period of time and then compare...

Here's a task that is out of this world! Given a description of a fictional cube-shaped planet, scholars answer a set of questions about the planet. They create a two-dimensional map and consider the distances between locations on the map.

What is the distinction between rights and equality? Scholars continue their analysis of "An Address by Elizabeth Cady Stanton" using the third instructional activity from the 14-part Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 2 series. Pupils complete...

Students examine the topic of subsistence farming. They research the future of subsistence agriculture, identify the types and locations of subsistence agriculture, and write about subsistence farming in regards to developing nations and...

Included in this resource are a variety of activities to do while reading Willa Cather's My Antonia. The activities, which range from mapping out Nebraska to writing activities about pioneer living, are all designed with one...