Practice responding to controversial information with the New York Times lesson provided here. Middle schoolers watch a video interview with the director of The Lost Tomb of Jesus. After reading a companion article, they identify...

Students examine world history by writing an essay in class. In this World War II instructional activity, students identify the attack on Pearl Harbor, the response from the U.S and the effect it had on Japanese-Americans. Students...

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.

What is your attitude on health and illness? By considering their own experiences, learners will reflect on and discuss their attitudes toward health and illness while educating each other by researching illnesses in small groups,...

Middle and high schoolers participate in a seven-part instructional activity creating Escher-Esque tessellations. They demonstrate their knowledge of geometric transformations after viewing a PowerPoint presentation, conducting Internet...

Collect evidence and reasons and fill them in on this page to prepare for presenting an argument. Learners can evaluate what they are missing and make sure they fill in each line and bubble before considering their argument complete.

Are your young writers having difficulty distinguishing between expository and persuasive writing? Discuss the difference between the two, and how some prompts can be responded to in either fashion. Included here is a simple lesson plan...

Students explore, examine and study the format of an opinion essay by viewing one author and activist that is helping women find their voices by reading and discussing the article, "Stop the Presses, Boys! Women Claim Space on Op-Ed...

Students write about the American dream. In this language arts lesson, students reflect on their American Dream definition paper. Students write using the reflection prompt.

Students examine life in Babylonia during the time of King Hammurabi. They read and discuss excerpts of the Code of Hammurabi, participate in a simulation of advisors to the king, complete an online interactive activity, answer...

Learners discuss the subject and meaning of examples of visual art. They analyze various paintings found on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website, answer discussion questions, complete online interactive activities, and write an essay.

You and your high school class can examine the idea of artistic movements with this instructional activity. Explore various websites, compare/contrast paintings, after which the assignments are to complete a chart, and write an essay.

Does it actually exist? Consider the sighting of a giant squid, much like the one that appears in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Middle and high schoolers read the article One Legend Found, Many Still to Go, and research other mysterious...

Ninth graders discuss the concept of hyperbolic geometry. They complete Internet geometry activities and write essays comparing and contrasting hyperbolic geometry to Euclidean geometry.

In this cross-curricular sampler of worksheets, students determine the meaning of specialized vocabulary and to understand the precise meaning of grade-level-appropriate words, describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and...

Identify the author's organizational pattern for expressing ideas. After reading an article on the California Gold Rush, middle schoolers determine the author's purpose for writing a passage of informational text. A full list of...

Develop historical analysis and interpretation with your older students. They will study and analyze three given interpretations of Christopher Columbus' life, which includes significant events, his character, and the impact he made on...

Use this communication skills lesson plan to emphasize evaluating a speaker's main point and argument. After reading Martin Luther King's, "I Have a Dream Speech" and John F. Kennedy's speech, "I Believe in an America Where the...

Use this lesson plan to reinforce the effect of passive and active voice in writing. First, middle schoolers write several sentences, and then use the attached worksheet to identify whether the sentences are written in active or passive...

The string section of your school orchestra can get a proper form make-over by incorporating this lesson plan. They reestablish proper playing form, posture, and sound as they compose an essay on how to maintain good playing habits...

Foster critical thinking skills by using the DR-TA Strategy with Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Class members read portions of the essay, stop and discuss what is happening, make predictions based on evidence from the text, and...

Fifth graders make a model and write an essay of a new arthropod family using known data.

Tenth graders examine the artistic legacy of trains by comparing the representations of trains in the painting of Turner and the photographs of Terry Evans. They write an essay, story or poem using their own observations of trains,...

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...