What's the best way to learn the elements of the periodic table? The inventions of Thomas Edison? Patience? To prepare for the performance task assessment on how people learn, class members share ideas about ways to learn in a variety of...

Explore how lack of access to water impacts peoples' lives in poor countries. Through text reading and discussion, middle schoolers are presented with the story of a young girl who lives and functions with limited water resources. They...

Was justice served for Bobby Franks? An informative article about the 1924 trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold includes an overview of the murder of Bobby Franks, the defense’s legal strategy, and excerpts of closing arguments from...

Provide your class with a list of possible topics (three are included here, but they're not exactly gripping), and polish their persuasive writing skills. This plan really emphasizes the prewriting process, and several graphic organizers...

Give me more details. Scholars complete an end of unit assessment by creating an information text box to go with their field journal entries about howler monkeys. Learners use the class time to work independently.

Why are right triangles so special? Pupils begin their study of right triangles by examining similar right triangles. Verifying through proofs, scholars recognize the three similar right triangles formed by drawing the altitude. Once...

Round out your unit on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis with a series of reading comprehension questions. As kids read, they challenge each other to answer specific connection questions from the text.

Sorry, Charlie. Scholars take a close look at Apology by Plato. Activities analyzing the text help pupils understand, make, organize, and write about claims. Learners work in groups, complete claim tools, and evaluate thinking by filling...

Scholars build background knowledge to understand the life and work of the union leader and labor organizer César Chávez. As they read teacher-selected resources, they complete a Building Background Knowledge worksheet and engage in...

Avoiding lab safety rules will not give you super powers. The lesson plan opens with a demonstration of not following safety rules. Then, young chemists practice their lab safety while finding the mass of each item in a mixture and...

Not all compare and contrast assignments have writers compare and contrast in the same way. Some only ask for comparisons, others only ask for contrasts, and many require more focus than a simple list of similarities and differences....

What exactly is consciousness? Readers look at paragraph three of the chapter "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" and discuss how Du Bois introduces the ideas of double consciousness and true self-consciousness. Scholars track the development...

Individuals play a computer game to terraform planets. Learners add plants, animals, fungi, and minerals to the planet surface by creating numerical expressions that represent the objects. After playing the game for a while, the class...

Model a bicycle chain with circles and tangent lines. Given the dimensions of the sprocket wheels, young scholars calculate the length of the chain that surrounds them. A second task has learners write a function for the length of a...

Generally, scholars struggle on the free response portion of the AP Physics 1 exam more than the multiple-choice section. Scholars benefit from additional practice with the help of previous test questions, including questions on forces,...

What are the complicated legacies of the Vietnam War? Learners consider the question as they examine videos and primary sources from the conflict. After examining footage and documents such as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and an op-ed...

"Yuns betta outten the lights!" Colloquial language is the focus of a lesson that asks middle schoolers to consider the pros and cons of using idioms. They read articles, match expressions with their meaning and place of origin, and...

Show a video clip that descripes how taking a journey can change a person's outlook on life. Learners write a paragraph about a place that uses imagery and tone to create a specfic effect. They evaluate their journal entries as well.

Katherine Paterson’s young adult novel Lyddie is the foundation of a differentiated instruction unit that not only explores the rise of industrialization and labor but women’s rights issues as well. After learners read the novel, they...

Prepare young scholars for life in the twenty-first century with this introduction to computer coding formatted as a fun problem solving game, this resource is a great way to develop children's sequential thinking...

Revisit your own childhood memories of long summers and lakeside fun with E.B. White's essay, "Once More to the Lake." Included here is the actual text as well as a series of short-answer questions that follow. Not only do readers study...