A Six-Trait Writing instructional activity helps your middle schoolers liven up their word choice and shows them how to evaluate their own writing. Class members take a close look at the language used in poems by Shakespeare, Kipling,...

Explore how photographs can represent a whole story to a viewer. Middle schoolers work on narrative writing techniques in this lesson, focusing on photographs from the New York Times to write first-person descriptive narratives....

Young geographers collect samples of different kinds of soil to match to the soil terms in Barry Rudner's rhyming book Filet of Soil: dirt, mud, dust, soot, etc. They start a glossary for the project on index cards or large sheets...

Middle schoolers write descriptions, narratives, and dialogues based on objects of art and time periods in a museum. They base several writing assignments on art objects and paintings, including a literal description and an emotional...

Students study the ancient African kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. They brainstorm what they know about ancient African kingdoms before investigating the trade and barter situations, and researching one of the kingdoms for an oral...

Practice public speaking in this oral presentation lesson. Middle schoolers list the characteristics of a powerful speaker. They watch a video of two speakers, compare them and discuss the qualities of a good speech. Afterwards, they...