Curated OER
“The Story of an Hour” Extension Activities: Teacher’s Guide and Notes
Enhance and extend instruction of "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin with one or all of these ideas. You might want to cover characterization and summary, or improve understanding of context clues and irony. You can cover any...
Curated OER
What is Drawing?
Students explore visual arts by participating in a drawing activity. In this artistic expression lesson, students discuss how our thoughts and emotions are conceptualized by illustrating or painting. Students utilize charcoal, pastels,...
Curated OER
Virtual Figure Sculptures
Students identify visual arts by identifying famous artwork on-line. For this sculpture lesson, students utilize the web to research popular sculptors and to see a video interview with Keith Haring. Students utilize paper, cardboard,...
Curated OER
Class Mural
Middle schoolers discover visual arts by examining a wall mural. In this art appreciation instructional activity, students discuss the history of art after researching information on the Internet. Middle schoolers view famous paintings...
Curated OER
Window Mural
Students analyze visual arts by creating a presentation in their schoolyard. In this mural lesson, students identify the work of Keith Haring by researching the web. Students utilize construction paper, markers and paper to create art...
Curated OER
During Reading Strategies (Visualization)
Students develop and apply strategies using visualization. In this reading lesson plan, students listen to sounds and draw images that depict the audio recordings. Students then apply this visualization strategy to nonfiction material...
Scholastic
Tell Us a Tale: Teaching Students to Be Storytellers
Encourage scholars to retell their favorite short story or folktale, adding personal details to make it their own. After reading their book of choice several times, story tellers retell a tale verbally to their classmates.
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...
Curated OER
Water Tank Mural
Students evaluate visual arts by creating a mural on campus. In this symbolism instructional activity, students research famous artists on the Internet and examine the impact their work has had on society. Students create murals around...
Curated OER
About Life: The Photographs of Dorothea Lange Image as Metaphor
Students define metaphor in both art and writing. In this metaphor lesson, students examine a photograph by Dorothea Lange and discuss the metaphor that is displayed in the picture. They write about an object that symbolizes a personal...
University of Arizona
Language Registers
Do you speak to your parents the same way you speak to your friends? The differences between formal and informal language are highlighted in this exercise. Groups are asked to select a scenario and script different dialogues that might...
American English
Welcome to the Color Vowel Chart
Focus English language learners' attention on word stress and phrase stress with a pronunciation chart that breaks the sounds into moving and non-moving vowel sounds. The chart tool uses colors and key words to indicate where to put the...
Curated OER
Composition in Journals
Carlos Fuentes’s The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait and Jaspre Bark’s Journal of Inventions: Leondardo da Vince serve as models for an assignment that asks class members to create a personal journal they will use...
Curated OER
Nonviolence as a Way of Life
Students investigate the example Gandhi set for others to not engage in violence when being oppressed. In this rebellion lesson, students identify violence and discuss how it is used and often ineffective. Students create a visual...
Curated OER
Presentation of Research Project
Students deliver oral presentations using appropriate visual aids and PowerPoint. In this oral presentation lesson, students research a topic and deliver a clear oral presentation on their topic. Students use PowerPoint to create a...
Curated OER
Analyzing a Writer's Stance
Should college admissions decisions be based on whether whose family members attended? Secondary students read and respond to a New York Times article on the issue of 'legacy preferences' in college admissions. Following class...
American Press Institute
High Five: Media Literacy and Newspapers
Teach the five different types of media with the first of three in a media literacy unit. Learners create and propose a final newspaper project, which must address information covered throughout the unit.
Curated OER
Identify Intended Media Messages
How does media convey different messages? Use this lesson to explore media by identifying and analyzing selected images. Middle schoolers analyze a poster and discuss the intended meaning of the imagery and how it makes them feel. They...
Curated OER
Sim's Cities
Students investigate city management and government by creating a fictional city in groups. In this civics activity, students create rules and a mascot for their fictitious city which they create from poster board cubes. Students...
Curated OER
Using Pictures to Promote Conversation
Students initiate and sustain a conversation of three or more exchanges on a topic while exploring a collection of large photographs pertaining to that topic. The teacher creates a comfortable setting and provide a variety of books...
Curated OER
Act It Out!
An effective way to demonstrate understanding is by synthesizing one's own work. Use a creative lesson plan designed for a unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun for small groups to show what they know about the play, its...
Curated OER
A Movie in Your Mind: Persuasive Text
Students listen to a broadcast of War of the Worlds and illustrate what they hear. In this persuasive text lesson students prepare for making a movie poster intended to persuade a director to make a film based on a short story.
Curated OER
Media Awareness: Helping a Product Cross the Finish Line
Learners develop critical thinking skills to understand and create advertisements. In this journalism lesson, students analyze the elements necessary for effective advertisements and work in cooperative groups to create and present...