Is, as Walt Whitman contends, America’s “almost maniacal appetite for wealth,” the heart of the American dream? Class members grapple with this question as they read David Brooks’ article “The Commercial Republic,” and quotes that...

Model for young readers how to make the shift from passive to active reading by making text-to-self and text-to-text connections. After a series of activities that provide guided practice, the focus shifts to making text-to-words...

Here is a terrific instructional activity on poetry! Learners bring in the lyrics to their favorite song. A class discussion ensues regarding what makes a song "catchy." After analyzing the alliteration of the poems, learners read the...

Practice distinguishing biography from autobiography through point of view. Tell a brief story of your morning. Have a class member retell the story to you (using second person). And have another retell the story to the class (using...

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...

Just how much influence did television have on the results of the 1960 presidential election? Media critics contend that the results were all about how the two candidates appeared on the screen. Give your young historians a chance to...

Dive into classical Chinese literature with this packet. Provided first is a comprehensive summary and a half-page long historical context of Water Margin. As your class reads the section entitled "Wu Sung Fights the Tiger," pose the...

Dazai Osamu’s short story, “A Sound of Hammering” is the focus of a three-day investigation of modern Japanese literature and life in post-World War II Japan. The events in Osamu’s story mirror those in his own life, and give a...

Vladek's attitudes are difficult for many young learners to understand. Prepare your class for the events represented in Art Speigelman's graphic novel with a pre-reading activity that has them read articles about and interviews with...

Elementary schoolers identify the three methods of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. The lesson is mostly lecture-based. When the teacher has finished the presentation, groups of pupils get into teams and they must...

Young hydrologists observe a waterwheel which helps them investigate the transformations of energy that occur when the blades of a hydro-turbine are turning. They work together in pairs and pretend to be engineers who are building a new...

Following detailed directions, teams collect the voltage and current outputs of a photovoltaic cell by adjusting the resistance. Using the collected data, they determine the highest power output. Implications for weather and a large...

How does the dirt get out of your drinking water? A hands-on activity introduces the use of flocculants to help clear solid particles out of water. The plan walks learners through the process of setting up an experiment that...

Add a word puzzle to your underground vegetable lesson plan. Learners unscramble vegetable names and discover a hidden message using corresponding numbers and letters.    

The tenant farming and sharecropping systems that developed in the South after the Civil War, the reasons for their development, and the eventual decline of these systems are the focus of this two-day plan.

Who exactly was George C. Wallace? A great lesson plan provides young historians with a hands-on activity, direct instruction, and discussion to learn about Wallace, why he was an important figure, and why he changed his mind about...

The way this information is presented, it could get kids really thinking about the realities of college. First, college is compared to high school in terms of time, homework, rules, and opportunities. Then, the nitty-gritty of how one...

The construction of skyscrapers is no simple undertaking, involving the careful coordination and planning of many different people. The third activity in this series explores this detailed process by first teaching children about the...

A class discussion on reference materials opens up a lesson on how to use these important resources. They discover that dictionaries, glossaries, and thesauruses are called word reference resources, and they practice using them. The...

Expose your class to Waiting for the Biblioburro, narrative nonfiction that will act as the bridge between ficiton and informational texts to come. Class members do a close reading of the text, looking at excerpts instead of the whole...

Many people, when searching online, will type in what they are looking for without much thought. But what's the next step, if they don't get the desired results? Careful selection of search terms. Your class can develop a sense for...

In this second of three activities, energy engineers plan and create a hydropower dam as they learn how hydroelectric power plants generate electricity. A hydropower puzzle is also included, which can be worked on by teams that finish...

Follow this lesson, which is written more like a script, to practice reading a poem with your class. Pupils read "The Road Not Taken" and respond to five multiple choice questions on a provided worksheet. The plan leads you through a...

Your learners will take on the roles of Congressional members in the year 1775 and devise a plan for America after the onset of the Revolutionary War.