How does Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun factor into a discussion of the American dream? High schoolers define the American dream and recognize the historical setting of the play. Additionally, they identify...

Looking for a great lesson on how to write a biography? Here, middle schoolers draw from magazine articles, novels, historical figures, and current events to choose a person, or character to write about in a biography. They follow a...

Young historians discover African stories associated with a royal altar tusk from the Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria, read myths illustrated on the tusk, and write a story about the life of an oba using figures depicted on the tusk.

Ask your class to think about how song lyrics can go with a video and more with a well-sequenced lesson plan that focuses on the song "Two Fingers" by Jake Bugg. Class members work together to make predictions about the content of the...

Bring bullying out into the open with an involved lesson surrounding the animated version of Shane Koyczan's spoken word poem "To This Day." Class members discuss images related to bullying and watch the video without sound. They write a...

Dander from the show Twisted Whiskers and characters from My Little Pony are featured in this three part lesson that explores using story pyramids to scaffold ideas, adding sensory details to enrich writing, and editing using common...

Bring your learners together to write a class narrative about the first day of school. Start off by teaching them about sequence with a quick oral activity. Then, work together to fill out a story map. Finally, compose the class...

Where would you go if you were to take a trip around the world in 10 days? After a discussion about famous inspirational quotes, pupils view a short film that shows a trip around the world in 10 days paired with these quotes. Class...

Word choice can drastically alter the tone of a piece of writing. Ninth graders read Karen Russell's short story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" and use textual evidence to help them analyze how word choice affects their...

Here's a packet filled with suggestions and activities for teaching the alphabet.

Young scholars explore the language of Shakespeare. In this literature lesson, students examine words invented by Shakespeare as they interpret their meanings in drawings. Young scholars pantomime the meanings and then write a short...

Tone and Mood are not synonymous! Introduce young readers to these literary devices with a series of exercises that not only point out the significant differences between the terms but also shows them how to identify both the tone and...

Connect with the text using helpful annotation strategies. As your class reads the first section of Karen Russell's short story, "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," they note important passages that establish character...

Would you rather be right, or would you rather be kind? A novel unit based on R.J. Palacio's Wonder focuses on the need to be kind to others and to accept their differences. As learners read the book, they discuss the themes of...

Karen Russell's short story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" has a unique structure that adds value to the story. With the fourteenth activity in a unit about literary analysis and textual support, analyze how Russell has...

As the class concludes its close reading of “The Palace Thief,” groups consider how the narrator's character has changed throughout Ethan Canin’s short story.

Introduce your class members to allegory and propaganda with a series of activities designed to accompany a study of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Readers examine the text as an allegory, consider the parallels to collective farms...

Is history "little more than a relic," as one of the characters in "The Palace Thief" contends? Has Hundert's love of antiquity kept him from changing with the times? Readers consider how the author uses these conflicting views to...

Learners read and analyze the novel, Maniac McGee. They answer discussion questions, read the short story "Thank You, M'am," by Langston Hughes, and conduct Internet research on genealogical websites to analyze their first and last names.

Students examine how to outline their story, to write a story and then edit their work. They illustrate their story using drawing features like squares, circles, and other shapes or a drawing program if they have it on the computer.

Middle schoolers create a drawing of a scene that they have found. In this art lesson, students describe their artwork by writing a short story. Middle schoolers use their creativity to develop detailed stories about the scene in their...

Khaled Hosseini’s video “Using Real People and Events” motivates learners to reflect on their own experiences and to use those experiences as the basis of a graphic novel that expresses a universal truth. The richly detailed plan...

Use this cross-curricular history lesson to work on your students' informational writing skills. After listening to songs and stories related to Sultana, they engage in a several activities to boost their understanding of slavery and...

Students use analogies to compare synonyms and antonyms. In this writing skills lesson, students use the provided synonyms and antonyms to create short stories that they present as plays to their classmates.