The house lights dim, the curtain parts, lights slowly come up, revealing the stage. Before the actors appear, before a word is spoken, the audience is drawn in by the lighting, by the colors, by lines of the set, by the props, and...

How can something be true even if it didn't happen? Invite your classes to investigate the truths found in the world of magical realism as they analyze short stories, poems, informational texts, video, and art from this genre.

Why did the orchestra director use a copper baton? She heard it makes a great conductor. Scholars select six items to test in a circuit to determine if each is a conductor or an insulator. Clear instructions for using electricity allow...

The film American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs introduces viewers to the differing philosophies of and strategies employed by 1960s civil rights leaders such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the debate over...

5 Broken Cameras, the award-winning documentary nominated for a 2013 Academy Award and winner of the Sundance 2012 Directors Award is the focus of a resource packet that includes a lesson plan, discussion guide, reading lists, background...

Approach ethical online behavior with a series of activities geared toward teaching pupils about digital citizenship. After a brief discussion about ethics, small groups inspect a fictional social networking profile with ethics in mind....

Who causes sinkholes? Or acid rain? High schoolers try their hand at myth-making as individuals create a god or goddess responsible for the modern-day phenomenon. They introduce their deity in an essay that reveals the name, parentage,...

While many believe slavery ended after the American Civil War, it continues today in various forms. Using a WebQuest research project, class members investigate how the institution of slavery lives on in the modern world. Activities also...

A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....

After watching the documentary Dark Water about a traditional Chumash ceremony and reading a Chumash origin story, viewers are asked to create a coat of arms and to craft an essay that details a family tradition or their own origin story.

To gain an understanding of Imperialism, class members read Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden" and Mark Twain's essay, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." Groups compare these perceptions of non-white cultures with the...

As part of their study of Things Fall Apart, class groups develop a multimedia presentation in response to the question, "In what ways does Achebe use literature as a means to express and comment on culture and history?"

"Eneke the bird says since men have learnt to shoot without missing, he has learnt to fly without perching." As part of their study of Things Fall Apart, class members read Paul Hernadi and Francis Steen's essay, "The Tropical Landscapes...

The Grapes of Wrath. The Jungle. Native Son. The Things They Carried. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. To address a current social, political, economic, or environmental issue, class groups pair the reading of a classic...

After researching an issue introduced in Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, writers develop an original thesis statement and craft an analytic essay using evidence collected in their research.

Encourage your young citizens to make a difference. Using Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America as a starting point, class members watch documentaries, investigate issues, and then write letters to...

Using methods adopted by Public Policy Analysts (PPA) class groups define a social problem, gather evidence to document the existence of the problem, identify causes, evaluate existing policies designed to deal with the problem, develop...

Eschew obfuscation! The message to writers in this short, humorous video is to choose simple, punchy language rather than supercilious, paunchy diction. After all, Dorothy does not say, “No coordinates exist like one’s domicile.”

The Odyssey, Star Wars, The Hunger Games. Odysseus, Luke Skywalker, Katniss Everdeen. Add The Hobbit and Bilbo Baggins to these lists, and you have a unit examining classic and contemporary myths, legends, and folktales with hero and...

Good and bad are put on trial for covering up the truth with vague descriptions. How dare they lie like that! See if the presenter can convince your class to ban these words and replace them with more precise, descriptive, and...

Replacing, bland, inexact generalizations with specific statement and precise information is the focus of a worksheet that models how to transform general statements into specific ones. After examining four models, learners have an...