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...

Let Y represent Yes to using an excellent resource. Pupils first learn to define variables using a complete description in the 19th part in a series of 36. They write expressions involving addition and subtraction in real-world...

Students study the history of flight of the past one hundred years, focusing on the invention of the airplane, the introduction of women pilots and the space race. They conduct research and then write and publish a "100 Years of Flight"...

Students discuss the importance of using adjectives in writing. They separate into five groups, each group is given a bag with an object inside to describe using just one sense. They write a description of a Hershey's Kiss using adjectives.

Close reading doesn't mean to literally read text close to your face, but rather to pay attention to particular details in order to develop a deep and purposeful understanding of text. The first part of a five-part resource provides an...

In the hustle and bustle of life in the classroom, it's easy for teachers to lose track of the standards they have taught, and those that still need to be addressed. This Common Core checklist provides educators with an easy-to-use...

Ask your learners to synthesize what they know about Waiting for the Biblioburro by writing a well-organized paragraph. Young writers focus on using transition words and including specific details in their paragraphs. The plan allows for...

Come up with a list of requirements for this expository essay on Esperanza's character in Esperanza Rising as a class and use the list to guide class writing. Here, learners will complete the first paragraph, discuss their notes for the...

Lois Lowry's The Giver is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking works of literature in the middle school curriculum. Round out your novel unit with a collection of reading activities, comprehension questions, memoir and...

Three options offer young writers the opportunity to read a short story, answer questions, and write a response. A handy language arts resource focuses on reading comprehension and analyziing the story's lesson: look before you leap. 

Can you please clarify? Scholars continue to work on their argumentative essays about selling human tissue by clarifying and adding cohesion. Writers begin by looking at model paragraphs and then begin improving their writing. They...

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 researching an issue introduced in Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, writers develop an original thesis statement and craft an analytic essay using evidence collected in their research.

Once you find and evaluate your sources, it's time to discern the most helpful information. In a research lesson plan based on questions derived from Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation, practice annotation and taking notes.

Take it one step at a time. Scholars use the steps learned in lessons three through five to guide their independent research. While using the steps, learners complete research tool organizers to record their thinking, sources, and...

Focusing on a specific inquiry and area of investigation, ninth graders continue their research projects and portfolios based on Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and their questions. The activity guides readers through the...

Continue work on the two-piece poem that compares two characters from Esperanza Rising. Give class members a few minutes to finish their drafts. After they have a complete product, model how to critique and edit the poems with one group....

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...

High school scholars learn valuable information about how to run a newspaper in the third and final installment of a media literacy series. The unit scaffolds learners to success with background information before they plan for...

Does your language arts class have a hard time with writing transitions? Use this organizational writing lesson to create three effective transition sentences that middle schoolers will use in their research of renewable resources.

An assessment designed to examine scholars' reading comprehension skills takes place over three days. Starting with a read-aloud of My Five Senses by Aliki, learners then take notes and discuss their most memorable moments with...

Creating substitute plans may not be the highlight of your workday. Make the task less daunting with a general, day-long plan covering math, reading, word work, and writing. 

Have your older students assist young children with writing in this community service and literacy lesson. Middle schoolers become partners with a local elementary school. They assist the grade school children in writing a pattern book...

Help your learners work their way through a reading assignment for informational text. Using context clues, they answer five comprehension question based on a short passage about the three levels of government: local government, state...