Plan for Research Success

Here is a phenomenal language arts lesson on media literacy for your middle and high schoolers. In it, learners produce a research product in the form of a public service announcement (PSA). First, they view examples of these PSA's to...

Readers learn together with a group discussion activity. As they read William Shakespeare's The Tempest, high schoolers prepare for a fishbowl discussion in which three or four learners sit in the middle of a large circle and have a...

Class members practice their writing skills by completing a prompt about maturity. They develop a constructed response about something they once thought was important, but may not be as important now. 

There are so many fascinating topics and concepts to learn about in the world. But where do you start? Begin formulating questions for an argumentative research paper with a guided practice instructional activity. After coming up with...

Take your pick of 16 graphic organizers, all designed for persuasive writing. Some provide space to prepare an entire essay or speech, while others provide space for brainstorming and organizing ideas before settling on concrete ideas...

As a culminating assignment for a unit study of heroes that uses The Hobbit as the core text, class members engage in a multi-genre writing project.

Middle and high schoolers solve a riddle about the appendix, and explore the paradox surrounding this organ. They research other human body organs to create a paper model of the human body, and write riddles highlighting identifying...

What evidence supports the big bang theory? Individuals analyze scholarly resources about the the theory and develop arguments backed by evidence. They brainstorm, share ideas, watch a video, and read articles to complete a graphic...

Break down some of the most foundational components of writing a research paper, such as incorporating and formatting citations, creating a thesis statement, and using quotes effectively, into manageable tasks for your young writers.

11-year-old Birke Baehr describes what he calls "the dark side of the industrialized food system". Explaining everything from genetically engineered seeds and organisms to Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), Baehr encourages his...