Candace Fleming
Ben Franklin’s Almanac: Being a True Account of the Good Gentleman’s Life
Candace Fleming's award winning Ben Franklin's Almanac is the anchor text for a classroom guide that provides teachers with a cache of pre, during, and post-reading activities.
Curated OER
Concepts of Beauty Put Into Words
Studying haiku poetry with your English class? Delving into Japanese history with your world history class? Here is an authentic and creative way to explore Japanese culture more deeply. Pupils will compare and contrast two tea caddies...
Curated OER
There Was An Old Lady...
Students participate in various activities using the story There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. In this reading fluency lesson, students read the story and then practice comprehension, fluency, and writing. An estimation activity...
Arizona State University
Journalism Lesson
Engage your pupils in a seres of journalism activities. For this journalism lesson plan, learners practice with AP style, analyze an article, practice writing leads, work with organizing information, and take a stab at writing headlines....
Curated OER
Cartoon Fractions
Young scholars explore mathematics by viewing cartoons. In this math functions lesson, students read several "Peanut" cartoons on their worksheets as they solve fraction problems and compare them to the comic strip. Young scholars...
Curated OER
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
Imagine what it was like to be a slave in the United States in 1845. Eighth graders are given an opportunity to experience life from the point of view of Frederick Douglass as they read and discuss an annotated passage from Narrative of...
EngageNY
Deepening Your Research: The Effect of Advertising on Gender Roles
Let's get back on the road! Scholars continue using their research roadmaps to explore the role of gender while reading Cover Girl Culture. The teacher guides readers through the text as they underline specific sentences. Learners then...
EngageNY
Individual Research
Class members choose an ad they want to analyze for their performance task. They then read specific text based on the ad they chose. The instructor guides learners through a Model Research Synthesis document in which they try to...
Curated OER
Identifying Personification in Poetry
Improve your young poets' descriptive writing with this lesson on personification. A SMART board and PowerPoint presentation guide your class through the process of identifying human qualities attributed to various non-human objects. A...
Curated OER
"Voicing" - A Believable Account with "The Glory Fields" by Walter Dean Myers
Dr. Seuss and Walter Dean Myers team up to cover the topic of prejudice. Using The Sneeches (about the culture clash between star-bellied and bare-bellied Sneetches) and The Glory Fields (about a boy coming to America on a slave ship),...
Curated OER
Fractured Fairy Tales
Through reading and writing, learners explore common elements found in fairy tales. After discussing traditional fairy tales, class members listen to The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by John Scieszka, a hilarious retelling of the...
Curated OER
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Explore Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in this literature analysis lesson. Middle schoolers read and summarize the plot of the story. They then adapt passages for a contemporary audience and analyze the...
Curated OER
Multimedia Storytelling
Experiment with multimedia storytelling. After watching a segment of American Family, first, middle and high schoolers tell a story about their families, clarifying the setting, characters, and script. They work on setting their story in...
Curated OER
"Lawd! Lawd! Lawd!"
From British accents to Texan drawls, a character's dialect can be an important part of the reading experience. A Six-Trait writing activity guides learners through the analysis of a character's dialect (Daniel Keyes's Flowers for...
Curated OER
We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution
Robert Coles’ The Story of Ruby Bridges forms the basis of this powerful cross-curricular study of civic education and civic responsibility. Class members consider how the book presents authority, responsibility, justice, and privacy.....
Appalachian State University
Effective Feedback
Use this well-developed class period to introduce your junior high learners as to how to provide effective feedback concerning their classmates' writing. The plan includes a warm-up, review, introduction, guided and independent practice,...
Curated OER
English Lesson Plans for Grade 7
Discuss the correct use of certain phrases such as "managed" and "could" in this English lesson. Middle schoolers listen to interviews on work customs in different countries and compare them. They make inferences after reading given...
Curated OER
Scripting The Great Train Robbery
Take writing prompts to another level in this activity, which allows pupils to create scenes of dialogue based on the 1903 silent film, The Great Train Robbery. Useful for a language arts/history cross-curricular activity, the lesson...
Curated OER
Book Club Discussion: Things Fall Apart
Students read and discuss Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart. Students are guided to analyze the text through consideration of the author's use of 6 literary devices. Students also evaluate the text according to their personal...
Curated OER
Extreme Work Makeover
Students revise paragraphs for effective word choice. In this effective word choice lesson, students analyze a paragraph for purpose, audience, development, and conventions. Students identify commonly overused words and rewrite a...
EngageNY
Research: Paraphrasing Relevant Information
Readers take a look at the source Ethical Style: How Is My T-Shirt Made? and discuss how to say the information in the article without plagiarism. Learners make note of and underline sentences that may present a problem in paraphrasing....
Curated OER
Texas Kid Writes Book About Presidents
Arranged into small groups, learners read a paragraph of the news story "Texas Kid Writes Book About Presidents." As one reads, others mark the text (underlining important information and writing notes in the margin of the story). After...
Curated OER
Let's Get Along
Students examine the book Smoky Night. In this cultural lesson, students read the text and discuss why it's important to get along with others. Students complete a Venn diagram to compare and contrast themselves with a peer.
Curated OER
Sunderland: Discovering Cities
Scholars investigate a local city (Sunderland) by participating in a discussion. They explore the different elements of the UK city by identifying the industrial and economic aspects. They also read an interview of two people speaking...