Nebraska Department of Education
A Letter to Myself
Middle schoolers craft a letter to themselves describing what their life will be like in four years using a prewriting organizer to guide their work.Â
Nebraska Department of Education
Social Class and Fitting In
Social classes may be explicitly defined as in a caste system or based more informally on such ideas as wealth or education. After reading and discussing an article about one woman's experience with trying to fit into a system different...
Nebraska Department of Education
Who Am I?
When people look in a mirror, they rarely see themselves as others see them. Tweens and teens can consider the significance of these disparities in a lesson that asks them to reflect on the kind of person they are and how they think...
Nebraska Department of Education
Collaborative Resume Writing
A resume is a key requirement in the job application process. As part of a career unit study for high school freshmen, pairs critique a bad resume, brainstorm as a whole class what should be included in a resume, and then as individuals,...
Nebraska Department of Education
Work: Love It or Hate It?
Future job seekers interview adults who love their work and ones that dislike their work. After reflecting on what they learned in a whole-class discussion, participants create a mission statement that details what they want and don't...
Orange County Department of Education
Poppa's New Pants
Angela Shelf Medearis'Â Poppa's New Pants provides third graders with an opportunity to stitch together their own narrative filled with sensory details. After reading the story and noting the sensory and concrete details in the tale that...
Nebraska Department of Education
Where I'm From
We are a tapestry woven of the threads of our family and its history, our environment, our ethnicity, and our culture. High school freshmen reflect on how these threads influence their goals for the future. After reading George Ella...
PBS
Exploring Identity and Intersectionality in Poetry
Just as Kermit the Frog notes, "It isn't easy being green!" it isn't easy occupying "multiple Identity spaces." Class members read and discuss poems by writers detailing what it is like when their identities are "oppressed."
TeenMentalHealth
Know Before You Go Teacher’s Guide
A 124-page guide provides instructors with what they need to know before launching a seven-lesson thematic unit designed for high school seniors on issues they will face after graduation. Topics covered include mental health and...
Nebraska Department of Education
Personal Roadmap
Sometimes you need a map to get to your destination. High schoolers list 10 short and long terms goals and personal assets they have that will help them achieve these goals. They then craft a paragraph in which they reflect on how these...
Florida Department of Health
Understanding the Risk of Substance Abuse Unit
Teenage brains are different! Understanding that the teenage brain is still developing and thus more impacted by substance abuse is the key concept in a three-lesson high school health unit. Participants learn about how the brain and...
Florida Department of Health
Exploring Healthy Relationships Unit
A four-lesson unit on healthy relationships begins by helping individuals develop a positive sense of self-worth by identifying their own positive characteristics. Participants also examine data from the YRBS Online Tool about the...
Inner Health Studio
Stress Management
Learners practice identifying their individual causes of stress, as well as finding healthy coping skills to deal with stress, in a series of short-answer response worksheets.
Beyond Benign
Real Cats Wear Pink
Does your cat sneak up on you in the middle of the night? Maybe it would help if he glowed in the dark like Mr. Green Genes, the first fluorescent cat in America. In a fun and engaging lesson about genetic engineering, high school...
Albert Shanker Institute
Making the Case for Equality: A Comparison
Martin Luther King Jr's " I Have a Dream" speech and Atticus Finch's closing argument during the trial of Tom Robinson both address the societal need to overcome racism. After examining the rhetorical devices and figurative language used...
ReadWriteThink
Robert Frost Prompts the Poet in You
A great poem begins with an idea, an image, or an event that evokes a feeling. Middle schoolers read biographical information about Robert Frost and then identify details in three of his poems that reflect his life. Using suggestions...
ReadWriteThink
Writing Free Verse in the "Voice" of Cesar Chavez
Introduce middle schoolers to free verse poetry with a lesson that has young poets read two free verse poems and list the common characteristics of the form. They then read a passage from Cesar Chavez's biography and a free verse poem...
ReadWriteThink
Persuasive Essay: Environmental Issues
Young environmentalists learn how to craft a persuasive essay about an environmental issue they consider important. After studying the components of a persuasive essay and examining a student model, writers brainstorm possible topics and...
Facing History and Ourselves
Many Voices, One National Identity
To conclude the unit on "Exploring Identity in the United States," pupils consider whether it is possible to combine many voices into one national identity. After creating an identity chart that lists words, phrases, and images that they...
Facing History and Ourselves
Connecting to the Past
Young historians research the connections between their personal histories and the histories of our country to gain a deeper understanding of who they are. To begin, class members write about an object that they consider significant to...
Facing History and Ourselves
Identity and Choices
Timshel! Thou mayest! is the big idea in a activity that reminds learners that they have choices about how they present themselves to others. To begin, individuals rate the degree to which the choices they make each morning are...
Facing History and Ourselves
Identity and Labels
Scholars look at the connections between identity and labels, assumptions, and stereotypes, in a lesson that examines identity in the United States. To set the stage for a discussion of these connections, class members analyze a cartoon,...
Facing History and Ourselves
Identity and Names
Would a rose smell as sweet, as Juliet Capulet asserts, if called by any other name? The importance of names and the connection between names and identity are examined in a activity that explores identity in the United States. After...