Aspiring journalists learn about media literacy, journalism, and the press. Units come complete with handouts, assignment rubrics, notes, and extension suggestions. Each unit also comes with a list of vocabulary words and learning...

Accompany a reading of Madeleine L'Engle's classic tale, A Wrinkle in Time, with a detailed guide equipped with 15 informative and useful chapters. Scholars discover who the author is, why she wrote the book, and crucial story elements...

An environmenta science unit includes three lessons plus a cumulative project covering the ecosystem. Scholars follow the history of the Ford Rouge Factory from its construction on wetlands and how it destroyed the environment to its...

As a follow-up from the previous lesson, young environmentalists discuss the benefits of water filtration and whether or not it's the best option. Other alternatives including air stripping, bioremediation, and phytoremediation are...

In groups, young environmentalists investigate water samples that are contaminated with different types of pollutants. Each group presents their findings to the class and fills out the "Types of Pollutants Chart." This lesson is meant...

Learners explore their digital footprints, and discover how information they put online can easily be searched, copied, forwarded, and seen by a large audience.

Here is a comprehensive unit on the 16 Habits of Mind that includes a wide variety of activities, worksheets, differentiation strategies, and instructor notes. The unit consists of 18 lessons and offers an organized progression of...

Explore the newspaper as a unique entity with a detailed and extended unit. The unit requires learners to consider the newspaper's role in democracy, think about ethics, practice writing and interviewing, and examine advertising and news...

Imagine everything you need to teach writing in one packet! Designed to augment instruction in language arts classes, the lessons, activities, and exercises contained in this packet employ AVID methodologies to help learners develop...

What is an emergency, why is preparing for one important, and how can your pupils help others prepare for an emergency? Answer these questions and more with a short unit. Learners will participate in a variety of collaborative,...

Jacque's soliloquy from Act II, scene ii of As You Like It sets the stage for a close reading exercise that models how to approach difficult, dense text and enables readers to practice reading comprehension and analysis skills. Learners...

As pupils progress through this lesson, it will dawn on them that the sun is an amazing source of renewable energy. They examine a case study of a place where it wasn't welcomed, and then conduct research to decide their own positions on...

Poetry is a very personal and introspective art form. Give your class the opportunity to understand how a poet's voice can speak to them on a personal level, and that every reader can respond to an author differently. After a poetic...

It's the classic scene: Tom Sawyer is whitewashing a fence. Expose your learners to Mark Twain's humor while reinforcing reading comprehension. Eighth graders are encouraged to read and reread, achieving as much exposure to the text as...

Who is Herman Melville? Read and discuss "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street." Then, discuss the film adaptations of Melville's work and translate a passage of the text into modern-day English. Discussion questions are...

Explore film adaptation of literature with this lesson, which focuses on the world of film advertisements. Middle schoolers discuss various films (including The Lord of the Rings) and create advertisements for a pretend film based on a...

Be sure to grab a copy of the Revolutionary Times! Scholars take a step back in time to report on topics set in the revolutionary period. Events include the ride of Paul Revere, the Battle of Saratoga, and more.

The tenth lesson plan in the 12-part poetry unit asks seventh graders to reflect on their learning about poetry and share their work with other poets.

The 11th resource in a 12-part poetry unit is a bonus lesson comprised of poems, activities, and resources that review the essential concepts of the unit.

Young balladeers analyze examples of ballads and generate a list of common traits (story, quatrains, rhyme schemes, refrains, etc.), then identify these traits in Robert W. Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and a ballad written by...

Spongebob Squarepants helps teach middle schoolers about personification! After discussing the human characteristics demonstrated by the cartoon character, scholars identify the personification in poems by Emily Dickinson and Langston...

Young scholars learn how to distinguish between the mood of a piece of writing (how the work makes the reader feel) and the tone (the writer's attitude toward the material) in the sixth lesson in a poetry unit. After watching two very...

A study of Rudyard Kipling's poem, "If," launches a lesson about theme. Class members read Kipling's poem and poems by other seventh graders to identify the themes.

Young poets learn the value of using a thesaurus when crafting and revising poems. They examine poems rich in figurative language and then a revised version with the figurative language removed. To demonstrate what they have learned,...