The New York Times
The One-Question Interview
Generate interest in current events, the theme of a new unit, or a research project. Individuals select a question from the list generated by the class, conduct one-on-one interviews, analyze the responses, draw conclusions based on...
Curated OER
Exploring War Themes in Art and Poetry
What is war? Students discuss the ethical dilemma of war by viewing Picasso's painting entitled "Guernica" and write down everything they see in the painting. Then they choose one emotion that best summarizes their emotional response to...
Curated OER
The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
Students explore "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe. For this literature lesson, students read the story and take notes. Students choose a literary element such as character, setting, or theme. Students write an essay...
Curated OER
Disease and Culture through Literary Time
Students select books to read that include disease as a plot or theme component. They fill out a matrix for the disease in their novel and write a five-paragraph paper about their book. Students use the rest of the week's classes to...
Curated OER
Night Lesson Plan: Stereotypes and Scapegoats
Students read the novel Night by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and complete related activities. In this novel analysis lesson, students prompt write and discuss the answers. Students take notes on stereotypes and scapegoats and read how...
Curated OER
Beowulf Lesson Plan
Students analyze the text of Beowulf. In this epic poetry lesson plan, students explore the themes and imagery in the text to evaluate their meaning. Students analyze the Old English language and examine the cultural and historical...
Curated OER
Modals and Their Meaning in Context
By focusing on an oil-related theme, learners answer questions using context clues. They assign meaning to each highlighted modal in an example sentence from a word bank of choices. (Examples of meaning choices include impossibility...
Curated OER
Lesson: Culture & Change
Can a palace door be art? Can it facilitate an understanding of people and places? It certainly can! Using a palace facade as a activity catalyst, kids will discuss geometric patterns, the kingdom of Swat, and geopolitical themes. They...
Curated OER
Lesson: Cultural Comparisons
A game, research, and cross-cultural comparisons are in the works as you open an artistic lesson. Upper graders get analytical as they make observations that will help them create a link between abstract and creative thinking. They...
Curated OER
Voice of History
Way before the digital age radio was the medium of popular culture. After listening to excerpts from radio programs (easily available on the Internet), participants return to the radio age by creating a two-minute sketch based on a...
Curated OER
Bias and Crime in Media
Critical thinking and social justice are central themes for this resource on bias and crime in media. The class views and discusses an incisive PSA that highlights assumptions based on race. Small groups read newspaper opinion pieces...
Pulitzer Center
China's Rising Labor Movement
Young historians will explore the complex causes and effects of industrialization in China by perusing the numerous articles included in this webpage. Throughout the resource, there are many writing and discussion prompts to help direct...
Film English
Be Happy
What makes your pupils happy? Find out with a lesson centered around this theme. Class members come up with things that make them happy and write about them in preparation for quick group project. Learners watch and discuss a short film...
Road to Grammar
Shopping
Talk about what you bought last weekend with plenty of activities centered around the theme of shopping. English language learners have the opportunity to listen, speak, write, and read over the course of these exercises. The resource...
Curated OER
Introduction to Greek Theatre and Antigone
Students compare and contrast a website layout and the layout of a Greek theatre. In this Greek theatre lesson, students research the Greek theatre and produce a bulleted list of five facts about the Greek theatre. Students complete a...
Curated OER
Against the Odds
What factors help people achieve goals? What factors prevent people from achieving goals? What are the elements that need to be in place to make a team function well? Using Damien Lewis’ Desert Claw and John Francome’s Winner Takes All,...
Polk Bros Foundation
Analyze History
Determining the central idea of a historical event or theme involves identifying key points of information, such as the people and place involved in the history, challenges faced, and choices made. Your young historians can use this...
Curated OER
Who Can Achieve the "American Dream"
Exploring the idea of working to achieve the American Dream, the class reads an excerpt from How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez. Following, the class analyzes the excerpt and discusses the theme of the reading using...
Curated OER
Speech in the Virginia Convention
“. . .different men often see the same subject in different lights. . .” but the great orator Patrick Henry used all the skills at his command to craft a speech to convince listeners to see things as he did--that liberty was worth dying...
Curated OER
The Effects of Slavery
The emotional and spiritual oppression of slavery in the African-American experience is the focus of this lesson. Middle schoolers analyze various texts by Frederick Douglass and Maya Angelou related to freedom and oppression. They use...
Massachusetts Department of Education
Nostalgia
To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine how...
Curated OER
Lesson: Heroes: Then and Now
What is the difference between Hercules and Spiderman? Both are heroes, right? Kids identify the characteristics that make a hero, and analyze the differences between heroes of long ago and today. They write creative stories describing a...
Virginia Department of Education
Synthesizing to Support a Thesis- Big Picture Emphasis
Help your researchers as they begin to develop a topic for research with these worksheets. Included are two nicely designed graphic organizers that assist students in narrowing and researching their topic, and an efficient evaluation...
Curated OER
Cinquain Syllables
Pupils identify and analyze various forms of poetry, then use information gathered from research to write their own cinquain poems. They then identify each syllable of their cinquain with a small icon that reflects the theme of their...