EngageNY
Building Background Knowledge About the Hero’s Journey, Part 2: Acts 2 and 3 Plus Focusing on Key Vocabulary in “The Hero’s Journey”
It's all in the details. Scholars read acts two and three of The Hero's Journey and collect important details from the text. They share their notes with their peers and listen for key words from the story. They then turn their attention...
GLSEN, Inc.
Ready, Set, Respect!
Instill the importance of respect in your classroom with a comprehensive unit that focuses on positive behavior in and outside of school. Three parts, each separated into four grade-specific lessons, cover bullying, bias, name-calling,...
Roald Dahl
The BFG Lesson Plans
A 55-page unit examines the novel, The BFG, by Roald Dahl. Six lessons pay close attention to friendship, dreams, and believing themes while analyzing interesting characters, writing creative vocabulary, smilies, metaphors, an exciting...
Fluence Learning
Writing About Literature: Comparing and Contrasting Characters in Heidi
Scholars read excerpts from the story, Heidi, in a three-part assessment that focuses on comparing and contrasting characters. Each part contains three tasks that challenge learners to discuss, answer comprehension...
PBS
Supernatural Shakespeare and Macbeth
"A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come." The withered and wild witches of Shakespeare’s Scottish play launch an examination of the fantastical elements in Act I, scene iii, paying particular attention to the action, imagery,...
Scholastic
Choose Your Words Wisely (Grades 9-12)
Words, words, words. The function of words in persuasive writing is the focus of a group activity that asks members to analyze how words advertisers use are designed to influence targeted audiences.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Document Analysis: The Mayflower Compact
Here's a great comprehension activity that models for young readers how to focus on short sections of a complicated text and then to create a summary of the entire document based on their understanding of the sections.
Prestwick House
Analyzing Multiple Interpretations of Literature
There is a reason why an Oscar is given each year for the Best Adaptation Screenplay. Adaptations are the focus of an exercise that asks class members to compare a work of literature with a least one adaptation of the work into a...
Curated OER
Challenging Stereotypes: A New Look at Old Age
Combine a lesson on the elderly with grammar instruction. Before viewing a series of provided video clips, class members brainstorm a list of words related to senior citizens and organize these words into categories that correspond with...
Facebook
Building Your Activist Network
Can social media bring activists together? Learners gain experience in using online media tools to raise awareness during a hands-on activity from a digital citizenship library. Once they identify a cause, groups create a unified message...
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
Are You My Mother? An Opinion Writing Unit
During a five-day lesson, scholars analyze written and visual art—primarily the poem, Mother to Son by Langston Hughes— identify facts, and write opinions. Learners read the poem several times, discuss, write, compare and...
Anti-Defamation League
Microaggressions In Our Lives
Defining, identifying, and learning how to counter microaggression is the activity's focus for high schoolers. Learners examine a definition of the term, write about their own experiences with microaggression, watch short video examples,...
Curated OER
Butterfly Life Cycle
Focused little scientists will flitter their arms back and forth across the room with excitement as they learn the life cycle of a butterfly and how living things grow and change over time.
Smithsonian Institution
POWs
Why did Vietnam POWs and their families receive more media attention than POWs in previous wars? To answer this question, class members view artifacts, read articles, and engage in class discussion. Individuals then assume the...
Curated OER
Beyond Media Messages: Media Portrayal of Global Issues
Take a close look at news reporting techniques and global issues. Begin by creating a graphic representation of developing nations and defining the term. After class discussion, the second day's activities pick up by deconstructing news...
Odell Education
Reading Closely for Textual Details: Grade 6
Close reading doesn't mean to literally read text close to your face, but rather to pay attention to particular details in order to develop a deep and purposeful understanding of text. The first part of a five-part resource provides an...
Read Works
Figurative Language
Here's a richly detailed unit, designed for second graders, that focuses on decoding figurative language, including similes, metaphors, personification and idioms.
Columbus City Schools
Keeping It Hot!
Hot off the presses, this collection of thermal energy activities, lessons, and printables is sure to amaze. Demonstrate how thermal energy moves about in a system using simple materials. Pupils demonstrate their understanding...
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...
Curated OER
Giving Can Be Fun!
That it is better to give than receive can be a difficult concept for little ones, especially during the Christmas holiday season. A reading of Jan Brett’s, Christmas Trolls, helps children focus their attention away from what they want...
Berkshire Museum
Nature Journaling: Experience the Outdoors Through Writing and Drawing
Step into the great outdoors and develop young scientists' skills of observation with a nature journaling lesson. Given a specific focus or goal, children practice making and recording observations of nature through written descriptions...
Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the anchor text for a three week unit that focuses on responsibilities, ethics, and virtues. While specific lesson plans are not included in this overview, a focus and discussion...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Surprise!: Extra Support Lessons (Theme 2)
Surprise! is the theme of a unit covering such topics as consonants, blending, short vowels sounds, high frequency words, and number words. The unit's lessons also include teachable moments covering story structure, illustrations,...
Curated OER
The Canoe Trip, Variation 2
The behavior of a rational function near a vertical asymptote is the focus around this trip up a river. Specifically, numerical and graphical understanding is studied. The canoe context pushes the variables as numbers, rather than as...