Curated OER
Committing to Respect: Lessons for Students to Address Bias
Here's a guide designed to build safe, respectful learning environments, and to build understanding of the value of diversity through lessons packed with activities for specific grade levels.
Curated OER
Connotation: Three Lessons for Effective Word Choice
Over the course of three days, middle schoolers explore the concept of connotation. They differentiate between the connotative and denotative meanings of sports team names, develop their own team names, logos, and text, and revise a news...
Online Publications
Become a Journalist
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...
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Beauty Is Skin Deep
Students reflect upon the the experiences of superficial comments based upon physical appearance. The expectations of others is discussed in class. Also the influences of media is stressed and its expectations are demonstrated as either...
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Who Am I Without Him?
Students read and discuss the book, Who Am I Without Him? In this fluency lesson, students practice reading with expression and making text to self connections. Students practice writing expressively in their journals.
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Conversation Lesson: First World Obligation
Young scholars engage in a debate about the obligation each country has to help other countries in need in order to help build their conversation skills. The format of the debate is imbedded in this lesson plan.
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Adding to the Picture: The 1963 March on Washington
Who do your scholars imagine when they think about the civil rights movement? If only a few faces come to mind, this lesson will expand their concepts of the movement's leaders. Learners examine an image of the 1963 March on Washington,...
Curated OER
Woody Guthrie: Life and Art
Woody Guthrie will capture the imagination of even your most reluctant learners. Using his work, your class will develop their skills in non-fiction reading comprehension, interpreting primary source material, and use of multiple forms...
English Linx
Points of View Worksheet
Put your learners' skills in identifying point of view to the test (or just practice) with an activity that has them identify the point of view in a story by giving three textual examples. The directions are clear and examples of first...
Curated OER
Getting the Word Out
Discuss and generate blogs in this technology lesson. Middle and high schoolers explore examples of blogs and create their own blogs. Use this lesson throughout the year to reinforce concepts from your language arts class (or any class)....
Curriculum Corner
8th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists
How close are your eighth graders to mastering the ELA Common Core standards? Keep an eye on progress with these charts, which include every eighth grade identifier and full standard text. As you move through the year and teach,...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
A Lesson on the Nature of Science
If you are looking for a great way to present natural selection in humans, look no further. This handout is intended to accompany the 14-minute video The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection in Humans, which can be found on the...
Vanderbilt University
Stories from the Panama Canal
The stories of the Silver People, the West Indies immigrants hired to work on the Panama Canal, come to life in a lesson about the building of the Panama Canal. Groups research why the canal was built, how it was build, the working...
Polk Bros Foundation
Common Core Constructed Response Organizer
Get your writers ready to compose a constructed response essay in response to either an informational or fictional text. Pupils note down the big idea they wish to address as well as up to nine examples from the text that they wish to...
National Institute of Open Schooling
Chemical Arithmetics
Substances with the same empirical and molecular formula must be differentiated by their structural formula. Part two in a series of 36 has pupils using chemical formulas to calculate how much of a compound is present in a given...
Curated OER
"A Gift for Mama," by Esther Hautzig
Students read a story about a girl named Sara. Sara decides to buy a gift for Mother's Day. They create booklets to illustrate Sara's short-term savings goal and their own short-term savings goal.
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Re-Searching
Students take a closer look at the research cycle. In this journalism lesson, students discover and practice Internet searching skills. Students use the search techniques discussed to locate information on selected topics.
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"Tarantula Shoes," by Tom Birdseye
Students read a book and explore spending, saving, opportunity cost, and trade-offs. They keep a diary of expenses to track their spending and examine their opportunity costs.
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Community Journals
Students visit a multimedia online journal as a model for their research and journal about their own communities. They examine writing for themselves and writing for an audience as they study the community and present it in more than one...
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Reading My Hero Stories
Learners use the My Hero website to help them develop their reading skills. They create a KWL chart for the hero of their choice.
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Daily Language Practice Builds Skills, Test Scores
Students develop their proofreading skills. In this daily language practice lesson, students improve their writing skills as they edit passages. The editing work encompasses capitalization, punctuation, and grammar.
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Organizers for Students
Learners . In this organization lesson, students have a general discussion about sports cards and make a chart to answer the questions. Learners read the baseball card story from USA Today. Students watch a web video about sports in New...
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Read-a-thon
Students gain an appreciation for books. They track and calculate the amount of money collected in a classroom or school-wide read-a-thon. The lesson encourages students to become better readers with the end result being an increase in...
Student Achievement Partners
Laura Hillenbrand's "Unbroken" and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston's "Farewell to Manzanar"
Passages from Unbroken and Farewell to Manzanar provide the context for a study of the historical themes of experiencing war, resilience during war, and understanding the lasting trauma of war. Appendices include extension...