Lead your class in a discussion about how they believe money influences politics. After reading "Go Ahead, Try to Stop K Street" from the New York Times, they evaluate the claims in the article about the current lobbyist scandal in...

Seventh graders use literary terms while discussing literature with their peers. They explore literature on a deeper level. Students formulate their opinions regarding response to literature, as this lesson helps students practice...

Eager ecologists explore ecosystems through video and photographs of a Mangrove. They discuss the animals in this habitat and how they interact with each other after reading and discussing "The Sea, the Storm and the Mangrove Tangle."...

Examine human resilience across two texts with a detailed unit. Over the course of a week, learners will conduct a close reading of excerpts from Unbroken and Farewell to Manzanar. The resource includes clear procedures for reading and...

Students examine Greek and Latin root words. They research the history of the English language, solve word games and puzzles, write paragraphs about the impact of Greek and Latin on the English language, and create flip chart study guides.

Your class can build strong, well-represented opinions about the music they hear. They listen to, and share thoughts about, a piece of classical music. Then they write a piece of music or a poem, and analyze their peers' work and their...

Third graders use the Internet to research a specific dinosaur. They work in pairs and individually to browse dinosaur websites, take notes on pertinent information, write, edit and illustrate reports. They post their work.

Why did the United States choose to invade Cuba in 1898? As part of a 3-day instructional activity, your young historians will first develop working hypotheses to answer this question, then work with a variety of historical primary...

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...

Students create a standard outline, using a word processing tool, while they are learning about the basic writing device of the 5 paragraph essay.

Students imagine they are president of the United States for one day! students study general information about the duties of the president of the United States. They create a schedule for one day as president.

Readers learn how to summarize scientific text and evaluate the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in writing summaries. They select science-related articles you've pulled and collected from the New York Times and, with a partner,...

Make history come to life by using the Frontier House series to engage young scholars in the past. Your class will "prepare" for a trip to 1833 Montana. They will learn about homesteading, frontier life, inflation, and cost of living....

Youngsters share ideas about cultural and/or spiritual rituals by participating in a fishbowl discussion, which explores the ways rituals have changed over time. They write reflective essays about their own cultural traditions.

Students identify how they are feeling and deal with feelings constructively. In this conflict resolution lesson, students explore their feelings through discussion. Students read and complete the What Can I Do? e-sheet. Students "think...

This exponential expression resource has each of the class members determine the value of given exponential expressions. They use their calculator to find the values and identify patterns. Besides writing the numbers exponentially, they...

Baseball is a relatively high-interest topic through which social studies classes can explore racial prejudice in the US. Video clips provide much of the background information that groups record on their handout and then share with the...

Students develop their listening skills as they listen to the book The Perfect Pet. In this reading lesson plan, students listen to the book, and then talk about the pets they have. Then they make a graph as a class of all their pets.

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....

The goal of this collection of lessons is to make middle schoolers more aware of the ways in which they are dependent upon water to maintain their standard of living. Learners compare water use in Lesotho to water use in the United...

Students study the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Through studying primary source materials from American Memory and other online resources, students of all backgrounds study the relationships between blacks and whites.

An excellent lesson plan on the classic book, Where the Red Fern Grows. Learners view the W. Wilson Rawls website and engage in a series of activities generated by the website. They write in their reflective journals, watch a video, and...

Aspiring astronomers study stars. They compare stars and explain the relationship between radius, mass, and diameter. By creating a star simulation, they discover how a binary star system's orbit can cause changes in the observed...