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...

If you are reading Judy Freeman's Oh No! or your class loves animals, use a reader's theater exercise to bring the story to life. After assigning 12 parts to your young actors, have them act out the story with a script that will be...

Lead discussion and thoughtful analysis as pupils view Rabbit Proof Fence, a drama based on true story about three aboriginal girls who ran away from Western Australia to return to their Aboriginal families in 1931. Here you'll...

Agriculture, deforestation, and urbanization. How have human's changed the planet and how might we mitigate the effects of human activity on the planet? To answer these questions class members research the changes in human land use from...

Life in the Florida swamps after the Civil War comes alive in the 1946 film adaptation of Majorie Kinnan Rawlings’s The Yearling. The film of this powerful coming-of-age story, filled with love and loss, can be used with or without a...

Here's an engaging, meaningful, and clever lesson plan on map skills for elementary schoolers. Pupils combine story writing with mapping skills to create an original piece of work. They utilize a worksheet embedded in the plan to guide...

High schoolers explore the use of voice and title in William Faulkner's, "As I Lay Dying". They identify and discuss the use of image, symbols and narrative voice in the story.

How is energy transferred within an ecosystem? What would happen to a food web if one of the organisms was removed? Elementary or middle school ecologists examine these questions and more in a comprehensive 5E learning cycle lesson plan....

Examine how addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division relate to and are separate from each other. As they listen to the book, The Doorbell Rang, they demonstrate the math described in the story by cutting up paper cookies...

Study and research the American Civil War in this explanatory writing lesson. Middle schoolers complete six activities to learn about the American Civil War and soldiers' views of the war. The lesson includes several options to complete...

Mostly discussion, this lesson explores the importance and methods of hand washing. A few true stories of community illnesses spread by the neglect of washing hands serve as an anticipatory set. The activity is most memorable if you are...

Begin the school year with enthusiasm using the book entitled My Teacher Can Teach Anyone! In this reading for meaning lesson, primary readers listen to the story and discuss what is happening and why the boy in the story might be...

What is true courage? Your class can explore the answer with these three Houghton-Mifflin stories ("Hatchet," "Passage to Freedom," "Climb or Die," and "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle"), which feature courageous characters and...

Give your class some background information on both Nathaniel Hawthorne and his short story "Young Goodman Brown." Basic themes and characters are introduced, especially as this is an allegory with many symbolic elements. Help your...

Prepare your high schoolers for upcoming testing with this reading comprehension practice! Learners will read the passage entitled "Fried," and then they will answer the questions that follow. Most questions focus on defining vocabulary...

An interview with Dr. Rosemary Beam de Azcona launches a study of the complexities of language and how meaning changes across languages and cultures. The investigation continues as class members view clips of the film, The Tailenders,...

Whether at home or in the classroom, each member of a community has certain responsibilities they must tend to. With the help of the children's story Piggybook by Anthony Browne, kids learn how to assign jobs in a fair and safe...

Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...

Middle Schoolers produce a class newspaper about the American cowboy and the times in which he lived with illustrations, feature stories and advertisements typical of the times. This is an ambitious, yet worthwhile project for youngsters...

Tenth graders examine the artistic legacy of trains by comparing the representations of trains in the painting of Turner and the photographs of Terry Evans. They write an essay, story or poem using their own observations of trains,...

Students examine the serigraph, "Wynton's Tune," by artist Faith Ringgold. They discuss the painting, listen to jazz music, create a drawing that tells a story inspired by their favorite music, and write sentences describing their artwork.

Groups of students create magazines that contain stories and images of one aspect of the ocean, and ocean life. The expectations for the final products are quite high, so this lesson will require some effort to properly implement. A...

Students examine and analyze culturally significant objects from colonial Boston. They construct a story around the life and work of Nathaniel Hurd from a list of keywords excerpted from a passage about Nathaniel Hurd. In addition, they...