Do research projects at your school look like a class of eighth graders staring at a blank screen? Use the Big 6 research method to guide middle schoolers through the process of finding a topic, searching for and evaluating sources,...

Seventh graders produce a mystery story based on a mystery box created by a classmate. They develop the story using appropriate voice and containing a clear beginning,middle and end. They participate in peer editing.

Students, in teams, discuss answers to a true or false quiz about puberty and write their best summaries on the board. They debrief how it felt to disagree during discussion and peer pressure in general. They write a letter to a 6 year...

Fifth graders explore poetry. They write a variety of poetry using the writing process. Students choose a topic related to Thanksgiving and write a Thanksgiving themed poem. They write a rough draft and peer edit their poems. Students...

Tenth graders explore how adolescents attempt to tain peer acceptance.

Students discover factors influencing their decisions after explaining their reasons for choosing favorite beverages. Working in pairs, they complete worksheets about the influences on decision-making. They write stories about...

Pupils summarize the findings of the Pew Ocean Commission report "America's Living Oceans," contrast it to an opposing viewpoint, and recommend a fisheries policy based on their understanding. It includes a scoresheet that was created...

Twelfth graders complete activities to explore life goals. In this career goals instructional activity, 12th graders write a list of their community activities and write a statement of their life goals. Students discuss their life...

Learners read as many high-frequency words as possible in a given amount of time. Peer one reads a word from a list, and peer two points to the corresponding word as they are seen on the table. This activity is timed and peer evaluated.

Here is an interesting take on the old timed-fluency activity. In pairs, learners work together to see how fast they can read two sets of high-frequency words. Peer one reads a word from his list; peer two works fast to find that word in...

Personality traits and physical appearance traits within families are the focus here. Learners make a poster which lists the shared physical traits they have with their family. Peers look at each poster and write down the traits they see...

Students become familiar with the historical and sociological aspects of the boarding house phenomenon in America. As students work in groups, they read and analyze documents that will help them gain a deeper understanding. To...

Read the descriptive paragraph (included) with your middle schoolers, and have them study the stylistic elements included. They'll look for vivid verbs, alliteration, assonance, similes, and personification. Before writers craft their...

Here is lesson 5 from a 7 lesson unit on using blogging to create a community of writers. The aim of this lesson is to get students writing about what Archaeologists do and how they use material data to study the past. They compose a...

Colorfully animated and packed with engaging examples, this PowerPoint encourages to employ clauses to create a variety of sentence structures. Peer editing of sample paragraphs would provide an opportunity for guided practice with...

Put children's descriptive writing skills to the test with these fun collaborative writing activities. Presented with the picture of an object, young writers are are tasked with creating a description that provides enough detail for...

Make your students critical consumers of media, and foster an awareness of how culture is reflected and shaped by media. This resource covers how alcohol advertising presents and promotes gender stereotypes. After a discussion on...

Even Seveth Graders can have fun engaging in a jigsaw activity. They discuss and define equations, inequalities, expressions, and algebraic symbol strings, cards representing each concept are passed to learners. They mingle with each...

Looking to teach your high schoolers how to write a resume? A strong plan for doing so is detailed here. Class members examine a poorly written example and then create their own original resumes using an organizer and Word template. Once...

Peers take turns timing each other for one minute and reading as many high-frequency cards as possible.

How are skyscrapers built? What does it take to make a structurally sound building? How can one work within a budget to complete a building project? These guiding questions will be investigated and answered within a hands-on lesson....

Provide scholars with an opportunity to practice summarizing text with a two-page learning exercise. Learners read poems, share stories with their peers, and summarize their new-found-knowledge. 

Delve into a Bengali folktale with a series of reading comprehension activities. Before kids read The Ghost Catcher, they discuss the concept of reflections and mirrors. They then answer comprehension questions about the characters and...