Fourth and fifth graders define the term media literacy, then come up with examples that they share with the class. The types of media studied are auditory, visual, and written. Learners get together in pairs and perform a media...

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...

What makes a poem difficult? Explore that topic and more with your class as you work through the lesson detailed here. Using materials from Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation contest, individuals or small groups examine poems and...

Identifying themes in literature is the focus of the language arts lesson plan presented here. Learners read short pieces of fiction and practice the skill of identifying the themes present in each one. The bulk of the lesson consists of...

“What’s in a name?” Just about everything. Barack Obama, Vincent van Gogh, Justin Bieber. Famous names evoke a multitude of reactions and poets often use the names of famous people in their works precisely because names carry...

Have you ever seen a fir tree? Assess your beginning Spanish speakers and their reading comprehension with a short paragraph about fir trees. To follow, there are seven true/false statements for learners to identify as true or false....

Do you know where Spain's largest zoo is? Give your beginning and lower-intermediate Spanish classes this short reading comprehension assessment about zoos in Spain. After reading the five-sentence paragraph, learners answer five...

Assess the reading comprehension of your beginning and lower-intermediate Spanish language learners with an activity. First, they read a short text, and then they complete three activities. In the first activity, they complete the...

Inntroduce primary learners to essential critical reading strategies with an activity based on James Reeves' poem, "The Wind."  Learners listen as the poem is read, first as a riddle, and then re-read with the title visible. The...

How many steps does one take to walk a mile? The number of steps one walks in a mile would definitely depend on the length of his stride. Shorter people may take shorter strides, and taller people may take longer strides. This activity...

Such an ambitious lesson! Third graders with special needs listen to an audio recording of the novel, Moby Dick. They stop often to discuss each of the main characters and analyze their actions in the story. They then make puppets of one...

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...

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...

“Words can be like x-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything.” Readers of Brave New World will be pierced by an activity that asks them to use details from the text to craft a biopoem for one of the characters in Aldous...

Give a voice to even the most quiet learners! Post discussion questions in different locations (on the whiteboard or around the room on posters). Class members then either answer a question posed or comment on a peer's response. Instead...

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life” and an excitement that comes with finding a good teaching resource. Included in a richly detailed packet designed to accompany The Call of the Wild, are a tableaux exercise, a...

 “Everything will end up okay if you believe hard enough.” “People create their own luck, good or bad.” Prior to reading Candide, class members respond to an anticipation guide that focuses on the issues of optimism, prejudice, and...

"Would a rational and well-regulated world include human suffering?" "If the plight of human suffering is the 'best of all possible worlds' do humans have freewill?" Class members develop their position on an issue raised by Candide,...

Candide is a dense text. To assist in analyzing Voltaire's satire, groups employ a cubing strategy based on Bloom's taxonomy. Complete directions for the strategy, a template for the cube, a worksheet, and a topic list are included. 

A unique lesson on the solar system, and some of the mathematics associated with it, is here for your high schoolers. Pupils are put into groups of four, and each group is assigned one of the planets from our solar system. They must...

Who was Walt Whitman, and what link does he have to president Abraham Lincoln?  After Lincoln's assassination, Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" This poem and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" are the focus of...

Based on discussion, analysis of primary source documents, and with the help of a graphic organizer, young historians discover the steps that were taken to eliminate segregation in public schools in the United States. This lesson from...

Patricia MacLachlan’s award-winning novel, Sarah, Plain and Tall, is the focus of a comprehensive study guide. For each chapter, readers answer fact-based and interpretative questions, define and use vocabulary words in a sentence, and...

A highly relevant and great cross-curricular project! In teams, your class will plot a course from the East Coast to Sacramento, California passing through all of the state capital cities along the way. As part of the journey, teams...