EngageNY
Researching: Asking the Right Questions
Learners look over the iCare about the iPhone performance task and discuss how it relates to working conditions. They then review the research process and place focus on the step of asking questions. Finally, scholars ask questions to...
Curated OER
Loose Lips
Have your middle and high schoolers analyze instances of celebrities using racial slurs or making prejudiced comments in public. After reading an article, they consider the roots and effects of prejudice and bias. As a class, they...
Curated OER
Untying the Knot
What are the current trends in divorce? What contributes to this? Examine celebrity relationship trends and how they relate to the general public with this discussion lesson. Middle schoolers analyze the results of a Census Bureau study...
Curated OER
ESL Asking Questions About Family Fill in the Blank Worksheet
In this ESL writing questions about families worksheet, student fill in the blanks with questions that can be answered with the given statement. They complete 8 examples using the clip art pictures that accompany each one.
Curated OER
Stating Your Case: Writing Thesis Statements Effectively
As a writer, if you have a weak introductory paragraph or thesis statement, you might lose your audience! Have your middle and high schoolers practice writing introductory paragraphs that include clear thesis statements in response to...
Penguin Books
An Educator's Guide to the Works of Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Middle school years can be tough. An educator's guide for the works of Lynda Mullaly Hunt introduces readers to two texts that discuss the struggles pre-teens face during middle school. Chapter-by-chapter questions and activities for two...
PBS
How to Teach Your Students about Fake News
What media literacy skills do people need to evaluate a news source? Scholars listen to and discuss an NPR story about how fake headlines often dupe young people and adults alike. Next, they study news stories, using a fact-checking...
Curated OER
Twenty-Five Great Ideas for Teaching Current Events
Teaching current events can be an amazingly-rewarding part of your teaching week. This resource presents twenty-five ways to incorporate current events into your curriculum. It offers some outstanding ideas, such as providing your...
Washoe County School District
Three Skeleton Key
Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...
Curated OER
Teaching Students to Support Their Opinions with Appropriate Details
Teaching students to support their opinions in the language arts classroom.
EngageNY
Finding Relevant Information and Asking Research Questions: The Big Thirst
Let's get to the gist. As scholars continue their study of Charles Fishman's The Big Thirst, they practice writing the gist of the text. Additionally, pupils add notes about the industrial uses of water to their researcher's notebooks.
Curated OER
Whirligig Lollapalooza
Using a cut-out template of a whirligig, emerging engineers experiment with flight behavior. After you teach them the concepts of force, air resistance, and lift, they discuss what variables on the whirligigs might be changed in order to...
Curated OER
Questions for Dancers- Interviewing
In this interview activity, students locate someone in their community who does traditional dances. They interview dancers using the questions listed.
EngageNY
Deepening Your Research
Give credit where credit is deserved. Scholars discuss what makes a credible source as they take a look at "An Apparel Factory Defies Sweatshop Label, but Can It Thrive?" Learners read the article to look for answers to the research...
Curated OER
That #!%@! English class
Students research the Alameda story. They interview English teachers, curriculum experts, parents, etc. to view their intake on the story line. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions on a...
Curated OER
The Rumpelstiltskin Story
Why didn't Rapunzel's hair stop growing? Why did it take the fairy godmother so long to intervene in Cinderella's affairs? Young writers consider unanswered questions like these and compose news articles investigating the true story...
NPR
Distracted by Everything - Being Wired at All Times
This multimedia activity challenges media-savvy learners to look at the critical issue concerning the inundation of technology and multitasking in the classroom, and its effects on the education of themselves and others. The tasks...
Curated OER
Revisiting Writing through Revision
Strategies to teach and motivate your students to revise their writing.
Curated OER
Veterans' Voyages
Introduce your middle and high schoolers to a different perspective on war: that of soldier's. Read Guisseppi Ungaretti's poem "Vigil" to kick-start this lesson plan. After discussing his perspective, read "The Screaming Eagles Fly to...
Curated OER
Denial on Trial
What is the "Faurisson Affair”? What is “Holocaust Revisionism”? What does freedom of speech entail? Do revisionists have a right to voice their ideas? Such questions are at the heart of a richly detailed, thought provoking lesson...
Curated OER
Sense, Sensibility and Sentences: Examining and Writing Memorable Lines
Involve your readers in finding works of literary genius. Have each individual write down compelling sentences that they read or hear, whether in a newspaper, advertisement, book, movie, song, or any other place! Once each person has a...
Curated OER
Basil Heatter, "The Long Night of the Little Boats"
“It was a miracle.” Basil Heatter’s “The Long Night of the Little Boats,” which details the miraculous rescue of the British army from the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, is featured in a series of exercises that ask class members to read,...
Curated OER
Anonymous Sources in the Media
When do people ask for anonymity? Why? After reading the New York Times article "For a Reporter and a Source, Echoes of Broken Promise," young readers participate in a roundtable discussion focusing on freedom of the press and the use of...
Curated OER
Searching for Answers
How does a judge in the federal judicial court decide on a verdict? Give your middle and high schoolers a better idea of how final decisions are made in the judicial system. Then split your class into four groups, assigning each group a...