Students investigate how fear can cause problems with policies associated with people with disabilities. For this people with disabilities lesson, students study the associated vocabulary, fill in a chart which contains policies that are...

While this resource is designed to be used in conjuction with a discussion of the book Dear Juno by Soyung Pak, it could be also be used as a stand-alone vocabulary lesson. The presentation covers a variety of words including sign...

Spark an animated debate in your class! Young adults consider some of the fads or trends that are prevalent at their school, as well as their own level of participation in them. Just how much of a role does popular culture play in their...

Act and act, address and address...there are so many words in our dictionary that can function as nouns or verbs. Start this instructional activity by having your class list as many as they possibly can. When an adequate list presents...

Narrative essay writing is the focus of a series of exercises that model for learners how to not only read a narrative, but how to also examine the techniques fiction writers use to create a setting, develop their characters, represent...

After the events on 9/11 many Muslim-Americans experienced discrimination because of their ethnicity and faith. Help break the cycle of ignorance by educating your students on the history, religion, and beliefs of a different culture....

Combining descriptive and expository writing skills, middle schoolers create a character sketch about someone they know well. They use a graphic organizer to help them discuss a model character sketch and organize/write one of their own....

Young scholars view image of Bridgeport Community Protest, discuss event depicted in image, and demonstrate knowledge of protest by organizing and carrying out an actual protest or demonstration.

Start your unit on The Odyssey in a fun and accessible way! Three options help your young readers grasp the concept of brave Odysseus's tale, including making masks of Greek gods and goddesses, and responding to different...

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...

Your 9th - 12th graders can hone their analysis and critical thinking skills by studying the way a subject is portrayed across media types. They examine how various print, visual, and online sources have portrayed key players in the 9/11...

I can't stress enough the importance of songs and rhyming chants to the development of early literacy skills. To reinforce color recognition, little ones sing, count, move, and create. All you have to do is choose which of these great...

Dear Nancy, how do you analyze a letter? Love, Trez. Dear Trez, you use a Letter Analysis Worksheet. Love, Nancy. This richly detailed worksheet provides multiple questions that lead researchers step-by-step through the process of...

Though this presentation is designed for the Texas Academic Skills Program's (TASP) writing assessment, it could work for any class that is preparing to write a five-paragraph persuasive essay. Slides take intermediate writers through...

Pogrom, schlepped, meshuga. Kapo, reich, Wehrmacht. As part of a unit study of Maus I and II, readers use a list-group-label (LGL) strategy for vocabulary drawn from Art Spiegelman's famous graphic novels. The focus of the activity is...

Do your class members’ questions lack depth? “Sigh no more . . .sigh no more.” Use a questioning strategy based on Bloom’s taxonomy to encourage readers to create questions that probe the themes of any text. The model discussion...

Designed as the final project concluding a study of Mississippi Trial, 1955, readers select a character from Crowe's novel and craft a portfolio of six entries that reveal not only aspects of the character, but similarities between...

Take an in-depth look at a passage from Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie. Included here is the reading passage as well as a step-by-step procedure for reading the text, a set of text-dependent questions, and a final writing...

An informative list compiled with quotes, authors, and discussion questions, along with 20 out-of-the-box application ideas, make up the collection of lessons geared to spark dialogue and creative thinking about quotations. 

Sixth graders make connections between art and literature studying about Medieval imagery and beliefs.

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...

Third graders practice dictionary skills. They use a digital camera and insert pictures from a floppy disk into a document. They play a game in which they are handed an anonymous definition of each other and must find each other in class.

Use websites to read stories about heroes. The "My Hero" website provides skills and reading materials to help your class analyze sequence and story parts. They put the events in order to show the correct sequence of events.

Young academics create a current events journal by skimming newspapers for articles that fit defined guidelines for informational texts. After cutting out two articles each week to add to their journals, they write a brief description of...