Your 9th - 12th graders can hone their analysis and critical thinking skills by studying the way a subject is portrayed across media types. They examine how various print, visual, and online sources have portrayed key players in the 9/11...

Use picture cues as a tool in order to create meaning along with text. With a wordless comic, young illustrators discuss the main idea and character traits, and independently write a summary for a page of a wordless comic. This strategy...

It's true: listening skills have to be taught and developed. Read this story about a tiger to your high school class. Then, without giving them a copy of the story, divide them into teams and have them attempt to answer a series of...

Illustrate the importance of specific details and clear directions. Sitting back-to-back, partners take turns building a Lego structure and giving directions to their partners to create an identical structure. The subsequent discussion...

Stories from "The Great Lakes Mariner" provide pupils with an opportunity to practice their synopsis-writing skills. The tabloid, which focuses on the Great Lakes region, is filled with stories written by sea captains, that are filled...

Learners explore the topic of underage drinking. They find a focus and write a news feature/analysis that reports on what the community is doing to prevent underage drinking and some assessment of the extent of the problem.

Third graders examine how a family modifies their environment to create a home out of mud. They read the book "This House is Made of Mud" by Ken Buchanan, and write a description of their own home that compares the home of mud to their...

A reading of Brenda Z. Guiberson’s, Cactus Hotel, launches a study of animal habitats. Working with parent volunteers or teacher aides, groups travel outside the classroom to select a habitat, take digital pictures, and incorporate the...

The fifth installment in a writing unit that culminates with a Hyperstudio illustrated group story project, this plan is ripe with ideas for ways to design group writing projects for elementary writers. Use the whole unit as a base from...

Highlight the importance of each animal in an ecosystem by having scholars research different endangered species. Research is a lot more streamlined when learners are provided with a tool such as the graphic organizer attached here. How...

The class defines similes after creating a KWL chart about them. Groups rotate through a series of stations in which they creatively complete similes. They create a picture booklet that contains similes. However, the booklet topic and...

Help learners write a creative story from the viewpoint of a shoe. The teacher brings a variety of different types of shoes to the classroom and each person chooses one. They then write a story from the point of view of the shoe,...

Young readers see that letters represent phoneme sequences in spoken words. They identify the letter "d," and recognize "d" in spoken words by exploring the meaningful representation and a letter symbol. They practice finding the letter...

While the content of this lesson is more specific to the first grade, the directions given to work on a PowerPoint are well written. These directions could be used by anyone, with any content. Younger learners may need help reading the...

Students recognize, identify and produce words that begin with the /sp/ sound. They decorate objects that have the /sp/ sound with items that have the /sp/ sound. Students create phrases with the /sp/ sound that describe the object...

The proof is in the details! A richly detailed plan provides clear examples of how to draw inferences from text and how to provide support drawn directly from the text. 

In a single, soundly-designed class period, high schoolers define good character, think-pair-share about thought-provoking quotes on character (More options would enhance the discussion, worth searching online for other quotes to add.),...

Step into the hopeful and tragic world of Anne Frank with this lesson on reading in context. After complete a variety of activities related to the first two scenes of The Diary of Anne Frank, eighth graders participate in a read...

Tenth graders complete a variety of activities related to the first two chapters of the book The Outsiders. They define metaphor, simile, idiom, and hyperbole, and take a vocabulary pre-quiz. In small groups, they write a character...

A video leads off this activity on fables, introducing the class to this important form of traditional storytelling. The group defines fable and hears an explanation of the origin of this type of folk tale. They summarize the story they...

Students become familiar with the historical and sociological aspects of the boarding house phenomenon in America. As students work in groups, they read and analyze documents that will help them gain a deeper understanding. To...

Students write their own folktales based on "Cathal O'Cruachan and the Cowherd." In discussions they examine the animal symbolism in the story, as well as the characters, events, problems, and solution. With partners, they select...

Young journalists get a chance to practice their story writing skills by listening to an interview. Using the provided script, a class member interviews a treasure hunter (the instructor) while classmates take notes and then compose a...

This detailed overview of a curriculum unit suggests using travel literature to engage and stimulate your third graders’ interest in reading. The suggested reading list includes fiction and non-fiction materials and offers urban children...