Help your young writers recognize the importance of composing formal letters. Middle schoolers read letters written by Thomas Jefferson and analyze the components that make it a formal letter.  They will then compose their own...

The cat might have got your tongue, but you can’t avoid the elephant in the room while you wait for the other shoe to drop. After all, the early bird gets the worm and the chickens are circling. After researching Poet Laureate Kay Ryan...

What important facts about Dr. Seuss influenced the Read Across America movement...? This is the driving question of a research project that requires scholars to find information about Dr. Seuss' life and work. Class...

Students investigate African American culture by reading aloud an African folk tale and illustrating the tale. They use their illustrations to create a book or a bulletin board that retells the folk tale.

How does the point of view of Poe's protagonist in "The Tell-Tale Heart" contribute to the suspenseful tone? Help your middle schoolers identify the point of view in a literary work with this lesson, which goes on to discuss the...

Students hone their skills at identifying the principle story in a work of art and text. Through discussion, students assess the central and supporting stories of a work of art that is characterized by multiple layers of action and meaning.

What role did Buffalo, New York play in the Underground Railroad? Young historians investigate the Underground Railroad ties to Buffalo and western New York. They create a web site or multimedia presentation based on the research. If...

Ah, food idioms! Now that sounds tasty. Class members read and discuss various food-related idioms, create an illustration of a food-related idiom, and develop a class book or bulletin board to celebrate figurative language and National...

Students complete a character study using a database to compile information from a novel. They design a five slide presentation highlighting the character's reaction to different situations in the book. They write an acrostic poem using...

Young scholars 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...

Twelfth graders use computers and the Internet to research a specified area, word processors to prepare an essay, a digital camera, a video camera gather visuals, and a scanner to add visuals to a PowerPoint presentation as they discover...

Is your class reading Pride and Prejudice? In order to link scenes to the themes in Austen's novel, pairs take on the confrontation between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth (Chapter XIV). After writing their own version of the...

Why did Elizabeth refuse Darcy’s first proposal? Was it pride or prejudice? Readers of Austin’s classic struggle with the significance of Darcy’s proposal and Elizabeth’s refusal by crafting personal response journals and sharing these...

Start your unit on The Odyssey in a fun and accessible way! Three options help your young readers grasp the concept of brave Odysseus's tale, including making masks of Greek gods and goddesses, and responding to different...

Young readers demonstrate phonemic awareness in words and blends, and recognize 100 high-frequency words. Use a nursery rhyme to point out rhyming words, and change the words by putting a new letter at the beginning. Each learner will...

Fifth graders demonstrate research techniques in addition to endeavoring to display focus and stay on topic. Using books and stories, they gather, organize, and share information about a topic. Additionally, they explain to the class...

So, what does the Declaration of Independence even mean? Learners of all ages paraphrase the Declaration of Independence in modern terms. They work as a group or class to paraphrase the language of the Declaration of Independence. There...

Eighth graders research, write, edit and publish a class newspaper focusing on topics related to first aid. They research how to care for injuries and write informative articles for the paper. Students compile the articles to produce a...

Investigate life along the Old Spanish Trail! They visit websites and identify the history and environment. They create journals, dramatic enactments, and maps to discover the role individuals played in society. They also explore the...

Class members create a PowerPoint presentation showing artifacts they would include in a time capsule. The artifacts and explanations reflect personal hobbies, grooming choices, school life, etc. A great way for class members to...

Tenth graders explore narrative poetry. They analyze sections of a poem and present to groups. They compose their own narrative poems using pictures as prompts. They exchange their poems and analyze their classmate's poem.

Help writers recognize how word order affects meaning, discover new words, and confirm or check meaning writing. They will explore how punctuation helps a reader understand what is written and the connections between punctuation,...

Practice vocabulary skills with this word analysis lesson. Middle schoolers examine the roots of unfamiliar words and use their knowledge of roots to discern meaning through word analysis.

Hook your learners with a great project. They research the underground railroad and civil rights movement through literature, view the video The Underground Railroad: Escape from Slavery, and read the book House of Dies Drear in...