What's In A Name? How Did Surnames Come to Be?

Have your class explore the dynamic contributions made by Muslim writers in the Middle Ages. They read a passage covering aspects of writer Ibn Battuta's life, then answer 3 guided reading questions.

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 and the...

In this small nations activity, students complete short answer questions where they identify small nations that are mostly islands. Students identify 10 small nations.

Students explore the possibility that a products name might bias a consumers decision to buy a particular product. The question remains to be answered, "Why do consumers buy what they buy and why that particular product?"

Marijuana affects the brain differently than inhalants, which have a different effect than opioids. Elementary and middle school classes read about these drugs as well as nicotine, methamphetamine, hallucinogens, and steroids before...

An extensive collection of video biographies of popular singers, present and past, from all musical genres. Each article includes its citation in several formats. (Note: Some entries have 'Singer' in their names but are not actual singers.)

"Suri" is the self-name of a little-known group of agro-pastoralists/cultivators straddling the borderland of southwestern Ethiopia and Sudan. They show some historical and cultural affinities with the Nilotic peoples in neighboring...

"Dinka" is a term that has been used for centuries to refer to a people who speak of themselves as "Moinjaang," or "the people of the people." They live over a wide area in southern Sudan, amid the many streams and small rivers that feed...

Students read the story of an Iraqi immigrant boy named Osama who faces taunts of terrorist in his U.S. school after the attack of September 11. They discuss the characters and their struggles in the story. Students respond to...

Students read a short story about a young Iraqi boy, which opens up classroom discussion about the difficulties some immigrant students face, especially in the days after September 11.