The PBS film, Bronx Princess, launches a study of complex parent-child relationships. Using the provided reading guide, viewers respond to clips from the film and compare Rocky and Yaa’s relationship to other parent-child relationships....

Why do books end up on the banned book list? How do these banned books contribute to the literary canon? Start by showing the photo slide show, and discussing notably banned books. Then focus on some of the most popular objections:...

Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown” and Billy Joel’s “Allentown” motivate young lyricists to craft poems about their own home town. Groups compare the two songs, identifying details, symbols, and conflicts. Individuals then picture a place...

“Rikki-tikki-tavi” provides an opportunity to model for readers how to use background information to enrich understanding of a story. Class members observe animal behavior, listen to biographical background on Rudyard Kipling, study...

Who was Walt Whitman, and what link does he have to president Abraham Lincoln?  After Lincoln's assassination, Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" This poem and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" are the focus of...

Get your class thinking about advertising with this lesson plan. Over the course of 15 days, your class will discuss advertising techniques, study the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos, and analyze the persuasive techniques of...

“What do you mean that my language is improper?” Prior to My Fair Lady was Pygmalion. Fair Eliza’s struggles with English, which according to George Bernard Shaw “is not accessible even to Englishmen,” come alive in the 1938 film version...

Welcome to our fashion show! English language learners of any age will like this online, interactive website. This lesson focuses on clothing vocabulary, and there are several activities to reinforce the target vocabulary. There are...

High school physicists demonstrate Bernoulli's Principle by blowing on different items and finding that they do not move in the expected direction! They apply Bernoulli's equation to the flight of an airplane. This well-organized lesson...

Hola, buenos dias! One method of language teaching requires the teacher to create an immersion classroom, meaning that no English is spoken. This plan shows how a teacher would go about modeling phrases to teach greetings and appropriate...

Take a trip to Great Britain with this fun reading lesson plan! Young learners read an article about many famous attributes of Britain - 101 of them, to be exact - and finish several comprehension and grammar activities about what they...

Did you know that some languages have no word for art? The English language does and the narrator of this short video discusses the aesthetic dimension of religious art as it "visually communicates meaning beyond language." 

Your young historians will square off as Loyalists dedicated to the English crown or revolutionaries fighting for a new nation in a role-play of a colonial town hall debate before the American Revolution.

What does English have to do with math? Teach your class the "grammar" of a number sentence. Sentences with correct grammar can be false! Understanding of a number sentence leads to a comparison with equations.

As young consumers of media, it is important for high schoolers to explore concepts of bias and prejudice, and how they may be present in media. After discussing ideological messages that media can contain, individuals complete a warm-up...

Explore gender stereotypes by analyzing how male and female characters are depicted in comic books. Using the provided Comic Book Analysis sheet, students record the attributes of male and female comic book characters. Then the whole...

Consider how well students' favorite TV shows, movies and video games reflect the diversity of society. The lesson introduces your class to several media literacy concepts, such as how media conveys values and messages, as well as the...

Students, in groups, create a display showing a "train trip" to a destination of their choice from a teacher-made list. They also answer a series of questions related to their trip. Groups present their displays.

Does history really repeat itself? Encourage your middle and high schoolers to answer this age-old question by reading the attached articles on the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the Iraq Crisis of 2002. How similar or different are...

Examine ways in which historic places and landmarks represent significant themes and events in American history. Then create theme-based travel guides for related historic locations. This lesson requires informational reference materials...

For a comprehensive overview of debate styles and formats, look at this resource. It details the Lincoln-Douglas debate format (one-to-one debate with specific, timed rounds of points, cross-examination, and rebuttals). You can also find...

Suggested topics for a role play debate include school uniforms and culpability for drunk driving, but any issue of interest to your class will work. What are the hot issues in your community or on the news right now? Class members...

Learners put themselves in the shoes of students who integrated Little Rock High School in 1957-58. Note: The primary resources in this activity provide powerful and poignant descriptions of what those students faced.

Learners of all ages talk about the meaning of the word "unique," and draw a truly unique person, one part at a time. They create a totally unique person, with a head drawn by one student, a torso drawn by another student, and lower body...