How can social media help or hinder civil dialogue? How can information shared on social media be verified? As the investigation of media reports of the events surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown continues, class members read...

What's the difference between story reading and story telling? Participants in a summer enrichment program learn all about the difference as they listen to famous speeches, engage in dramatic readings, and craft their own short stories...

Commercial advertising—we can't get away from it, but do we realize just how often we are being advertised to? With this instructional activity, scholars analyze mass media to identify how its techniques influence our daily lives....

What important facts about Dr. Seuss influenced the Read Across America movement...? This is the driving question of a research project that requires scholars to find information about Dr. Seuss' life and work. Class...

We are bombarded with media images expressly designed to influence viewers. Learning how to analyze the intended effects of these images is essential and the focus of an activity that asks viewers to use the provided questions to guide...

Is there a difference in the way organizations present news via social media and in print? The third in a series of 16 lessons from The Social Media Toolbox explores news outlets and their delivery methods. Groups follow a story for a...

Living independently is about more than managing money. Learn how to manage time, balance responsibilities, and calculate overtime and income with a set of activities about life management skills.

Peers take turns timing each other for one minute and reading as many high-frequency cards as possible.

Here is an interesting take on the old timed-fluency activity. In pairs, learners work together to see how fast they can read two sets of high-frequency words. Peer one reads a word from his list; peer two works fast to find that word in...

Learners time each other as they read as many high-frequency words as possible in one minute. Peers record progress.

Do your students love sports? Do they love math and reading? If the first answer is yes and the second is no, a resource with sports-themed math and literacy games may change their minds! Learners move through stations to practice...

Fourth time is a charm. Learners complete multiple reads of Hugo, the Lord’s Nephew. On the fourth read, they make notes about each page on sticky notes. They then complete a think-pair-share activity with a partner to determine the...

A visual literary lesson provides learners with OPTIC (Observations, Predictions, Themes, Inferences, Conclusions), a reading strategy to help them understand and interpret visual and written texts. Scholars practice the strategy with a...

Learners practice listening to and reading various types of media and text. In groups, learners use video, newspapers, magazines, and more to compare and contrast different types of information. They identify the differences between fact...

Lois Lowry's The Giver is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking works of literature in the middle school curriculum. Round out your novel unit with a collection of reading activities, comprehension questions, memoir and...

Introduce young learners to the idea of disabilities and making friends with children who are different than they are. Using Don't Call Me Special - A First Look at Disability by Pat Thomas, learners are guided through the new...

Young scholars investigate new vocabulary words with a fun, collaborative activity. Given a deck of word cards, pairs of students flip over one at a time and independently look up the term in a dictionary. They then take turns rolling a...

Engage conversation and explore the journey as you challenge young readers to interpret the german folktale, "The Fisherman and His Wife" written by literary brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Sometimes it's all too easy to slip into informal language, ya know? Help your class master code-switching with the activity and drill provided here. The activity is a literature discussion where formal language is required. The...

Reinforce important reading skills with a set of vocabulary lesson plans. Middle schoolers complete sentences, play word games, finish analogies, and build their growing vocabulary with a packet of helpful and applicable graphic organizers.

As young consumers of media, it is important for high schoolers to explore concepts of bias and prejudice, and how they may be present in media. After discussing ideological messages that media can contain, individuals complete a warm-up...

Make a study of the First Amendment and its relationship to freedom. Pupils rewrite the amendment and discuss the central idea before focusing on a specific phrase. After discussing, class members write a journal entry about the included...

The titular Matilda from Roald Dahl's famous novel adored books above all things. Discuss why it is important to read stories from across cultures and around the world using the first chapter from the ever-loved story Matilda.

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.