Are your mythology students fans of Marvel Comics or the movies, Thor and The Avengers? Planning a unit on Norse Mythology? The Eddas, Asgard, Yggdrasil, and all the gods and goddesses of the Norse tradition are included in this...

Robert Coles’ The Story of Ruby Bridges forms the basis of this powerful cross-curricular study of civic education and civic responsibility. Class members consider how the book presents authority, responsibility, justice, and privacy.....

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...

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...

This lesson plan pairs high and low leveled readers together to make partner reading beneficial for both. Learners read a selected text as a team, when the lower leveled reader is stuck, his partner is there to help him out. And by...

In his article about color-blind casting entitled, "Willy Loman Is Lost, Still Looking for Stimulus Plan and Some Dignity," Charles Isherwood quotes August Wilson as saying,  "To mount an all-black production of a 'Death of a...

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 lesson 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 poem "This...

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...

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 lesson in this series explores this detailed process by first teaching children about the main...

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...

For 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 plan, 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...