Build the Tallest Building

Besides serving as awe-inspiring monuments of human achievement, skyscrapers are built to perform a wide range of functions in urban communities. The second lesson in this series begins by exploring the history of the Empire State...

Exposing learners to the power of words in poetry is a stimulating way to learn languages. Songs, haikus, rhyming words, and narrative works are all employed in a resource for teaching English as a Second Language.

Use short stories to teach English? Yes! Designed as a professional development opportunity for English language teachers, the ideas in this booklet can easily be adapted to advanced ESL/ELL classes.

The construction of skyscrapers is no simple undertaking, involving the careful coordination and planning of many different people. The third lesson in this series explores this detailed process by first teaching children about the main...

Everyone is good at something. Scholars receive their mid-unit assessments with feedback. They look over their papers and write their strengths as a writer and goals on index cards. The class then has a mini lesson in using sentence...

A five-minute video details what constructed responses are and offers several strategies for answering such questions proficiently. 

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...

Provide pupils samples of different types of poems including haikus, narrative, nonsense, shape, and rhyming poems. In groups, class members read the poems, establish their general meaning, identify poetic devices, and rate the poems,...

Hear one author's take on what makes a compelling fictional world and how to build a story within it. A series of questions check if the kids were listening, and a compendium of six rich resources for expanding on this concept also...

Your class can participate in a writing program involving four building blocks. By exploring words, sentences, writing forms, and story organization, they improve their creative writing skills throughout this year-long unit. Early in the...