Make your scholars more aware of stereotypical portrayals in film and television. Discuss the definition of "stereotypes" and how they are used to present a story. High schoolers look at specific television shows and complete a chart...

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce’s short story, is used to model how structural moves, the decisions an author makes about setting, point of view, time order, etc., can be examined to reveal an author’s purpose. Groups...

Prepare readers of Arthur Miller's The Crucible for a timed, in-class essay assessment with seven graphic organizers that ask individuals to note conflicts, both internal and external, characters' actions, possible...

The multi-lesson, 47-page packet contains everything you need to ensure kids can recognize the clues provided to identify the type of text, the intended audience, and the author's purpose in writing the passage.

In this language test practice instructional activity, students complete a set of 42 multiple choice questions covering a variety of basic language skills: punctuation, capitalization, parts of speech, sentences structure, alphabetical...

Students explore the images and idioms related to love in their own culture. They examine new rituals recently created in Japan by reading and discussing "Osaka Journal:Japanese Date Clubs Take the Muss Out of Mating."

Students read the article 'Fading Indian Rock Art Saved, at least in Database' and discuss its contents. After viewing examples of works from a variety of periods and places, students choose a time and place on which to conduct research.

Students locate Plymouth, MA, Hudson River, Cape Cod, Holland and England on a map. They identify the reasons the Pilgrims came to the New World and explain how the investors and the colonists would each benefit from a new colony. After...

In this thinking skills worksheet, learners read a description about the kind of pet a girl wants. From three choices, students circle the picture of the pet that best fits the description.

In this thinking skills worksheet, students read a paragraph that describes the travel needs of a man who needs to get to a building on top of a mountain. From 3 picture choices, students circle the vehicle that is the right one to fit...

Students participate in Valentine's Day writing and literacy center activities. In this writing and literacy lesson, students develop Valentine's Day journals using recycled cards and small blank sheets of paper. They write sentences...

Students explore why Thanksgiving is celebrated. In this cross-curriculum lesson, students listen to the book Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes, and complete the sentence frame "I am thankful for ____." Students practice phonemic...

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass serves as the anchor text for a lesson on symbolism. Readers use the provided worksheets to examine the symbols in the novel as well as in the world around them.

Animals oftentimes elicit various characteristics which make them symbolic or representative of human feeling, action, or emotion. The class creates horse characters out of clay to show character action and symbolism. This is a great...

The Grapes of Wrath. The Jungle. Native Son. The Things They Carried. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. To address a current social, political, economic, or environmental issue, class groups pair the reading of a...

A fun and delicious lesson can help your kids learn about plural nouns and story sequencing. After reading The Magic Apple by Rob Cleveland, kids match pictures to story segments and add s to nouns to make them plural....

Really? Rapping The Odyssey? Really. A discussion of the oral tradition of story telling and its links to Epic poetry sets the stage for a series of activities that encourage improvisation to integrate music into other classrooms....

Should the student population wear uniforms to school? Pupils express whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with a controversial statement, moving to a designated corner of the room to indicate their stance....

Help your young writers use logic in their persuasive writing. Discuss the characteristics of a persuasive paper, and have pupils work together to explore and solve a syllogism. They will write a short persuasive paper which includes a...

Analogies demonstrate how words relate to each other and crafting analogies is a good way to encourage learners to develop their understanding of the layers of meanings in words. This worksheet provides pupils practice completing and...

Focus on similarities and differences with a jigsaw activity that requires pupils to compare Waiting for the Biblioburro to other texts they have read. To prepare, class members first respond to text-dependent questions, moving on to...

In pairs, learners describe and use guide words to locate words in a dictionary. This is a timed activity, where points can be earned by completing the goal first. Tip: Have kids look up weird words in the dictionary, and then come up...

As a review of persuasive techniques, groups develop a one-sentence slogan designed to entice others to purchase a produce or adopt a point of view. The group then craft a storyboard for a commercial for their product.

Read and analyze a variety of Shakespearean and contemporary puns using Visual Thesaurus computer software. Middle and high schoolers analyze a pun as a class; in small groups they analyze a Shakespearean pun using contextual clues and...