Quotation marks are the focus of this resource. In it, youngsters discover how to correctly use punctuation marks. It is meant to be carried out over a three-day period. You could shorten it, but I wouldn't. The activities are...

Analyze Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous and powerful "I Have a Dream" speech as a primary source document. After reading up on rhetorical devices and working in small groups to define terms, class members identify and explain the use of...

Critical thinkers consider how word choice in speeches impacts the meaning and effectiveness of the message being presented. They examine and respond to some of the speeches made at the 2004 Republican and Democratic National...

A discussion of the Supreme Court’s Opinion of Tinker v. Des Moines generates a discussion of the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment. Although the key elements of this lesson are based on a video that is not included, the activities...

Students, after reading Fahrenheit 451, brainstorm inventions that could have been in the novel. They present their invention to the class and writing an expository essay about their creation.

Writing teaches us so much. One can identify the many characteristics of a newspaper, use the Internet to gather information, and communicate with others. Primary students create a class newspaper for publishing and dispersal.

Students choose a sport and promote a real or imaginary team by creating press releases, business cards, and ads or commercials.

Pupils examine similarities and differences between cultures. They'll see that literature, reading, and story telling is something all cultures have in common. They should construct Venn diagrams to help them compare and contrast the...

Students develop their abilities to solve problems both in school and in a variety of situations similar to that they have encountered in life. They define the term ecosystem in nature by comparing them to familiar organizational...

Eleventh graders determine the causes and effects of persecution. They read The Crucible by Arthur Miller. They analyze the historical significance of persecution. They use technology to research types of persecution.

What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...

Primary readers read books in order to practice word recognition, rhyming, and play reading games. They will "read" simple books to reinforce basic reading skills in order to create a foundation. Readers are available to print out along...

Fourth graders recognize that the Tejanas were Texas women of Spanish-Mexican origin who contributed to the history of Texas. Students read and research the Tejanas women, complete an essay about a day in the life of a Tejanas woman ,and...

Supplement your lessons on The Lorax with four related word exercises. Pupils alphabetize, unscramble, choose the correct spelling of, and complete words related to the story.

The Nashua River serves as the focal point of an investigation of the treatment of and care for natural resources. A reading of A River Rand Wild: An Environmental History by Lynne Cherry, launches the study and class members consider...

Point of view is everything, especially when reporting about the war in Afghanistan. Class members compare and contrast the same event from the war in Afghanistan as reported by five different sources. Learners are also asked to rank the...

To appreciate the value of seeing and hearing a poetry performance, groups prepare readings of selected poems and then compare and critique their interpretations and videotaped versions of the same poem. Included in the resource are...

As part of their reading of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee, class members consider what it would take to survive living on their own. Using the provided worksheet, individuals list their needs and decide where they would...

Any story can be mapped onto a plot graph. This particular chart includes the mountain shape of a traditional plot graph. Each element of plot is labeled on the page and surrounded by a box to make the words stand out. Learners write in...

Imagine a project that informs and entertains. Replace book reports with a bulletin board that highlights all the important elements of a novel. Readers research the author, create a timeline of events in the story, write a...

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a great story to share with your class, and this lesson focuses on just that story! The eighth in a fourteen-lesson series on short stories, the plan has learners study some vocabulary, read the...

There are so many authors of short stories, and your class can have the chance to study quite a few. This seventh lesson in a series of fourteen continues the decision-making process for the final assessment: a short story author study....

The second lesson in a series of fourteen, this plan takes the short story basics a step further. Learners complete a quiz about the story from the previous day, discuss the text, learn about Anton Chekhov, and work in groups to begin...

How should pupils read short stories? Set them up for this unit with an introductory lesson that goes over the main characteristics of a short story and starts learners off reading their first short story of the unit. In order to get a...