A reading of Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter opens a discussion of justice and fairness. Using a Venn diagram and an Idea Wheel graphic organizer, class members consider the similarities and differences in these two terms. They then...

An Online NewsHour article about scholarly ethics launches this study of plagiarism. Since historians are supposed to bring original ideas and perspectives to their publications, they must give credit to the ideas of others. After a...

What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...

Second graders explore the purpose of a dictionary. In this library media lesson, 2nd graders explore My First Dictionary and identify guidewords, entry words, and captions. Students list ways they can use the dictionary.

Learners use a database as a vocabulary resource during writing/reading. They preview stories and list unknown works into their reading notebooks. Students find the definitions, and enter their words into a database using a teacher...

Who named the shapes, or the days of the week? Should words be removed from the dictionary if they're no longer commonly used? Are there too many words in the English language? Language arts students explore these and additional...

How can learners evaluate research sources for authority, accuracy, and credibility? By completing readings, discussions, and graphic organizers, scholars learn how to properly evaluate sources to find credible information. Additionally,...

Young scholars understand the way the dictionary is laid out as well as the purpose for why people use dictionaries. In this language arts lesson, students recognize the need for alphabetical order and are able to find words using a...

Students explore economics by creating a budget. In this financial goal setting lesson, students investigate their use of time by completing a worksheet. Students identify financial goals they would like to achieve in the next several...

Looking for materials to accompany your study of Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes? Look no further! Included here is everything you need to go alongside your unit: worksheets, graphic organizers, writing assignments, an assessment,...

Riddle me this! What do kennings, caesura, and alliteration have to do with the Nowell Codex? Introduce class members to Anglo-Saxon poetry and prepare readers for a study of Beowulf with a series of activities that...

What elements are needed to have a revolution? How do historical revolutions from across the globe and generations compare with one another? This is an excellent activity that incorporates group work, source analysis, and an engaging...

Teams practice decoding and using context strategies to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words. After verifying the meanings of words through the use of dictionaries, the Internet, thesauruses, and other sources, learners write the...

Three annotated passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on "Nature" provide young philosophers a chance to improve their reading comprehension skills as they gain insight into Emerson's ideas.

Here is a lesson which may be best suited for a library science teacher, or one that can be done by a regular teacher when in the library. In it, learners explore the best ways to use print and electronic resources to find information...

Middle schoolers engage in a lesson which reminds them that root words indicate the base meaning of a word, and that those roots are found in many different words that have similar meanings. Pairs of pupils use construction paper and...

Use primary text documents to learn word roots. Learners listen to a reading of the Declaration of Independence and highlight words they don't know. They compile these words and guess their meanings. They discuss roots, prefixes,...

Students study life cycles including developing their understanding of the human life cycle. They decide where they are in the human life cycle and provide reasons for that placement. They compare the human life cycle to that of the...

Young scholars write and contribute one page for a class picture dictionary. They discuss how to alphabetize words, and examine both regular and picture dictionaries and how they are organized. Next they create a page for the class...

Students explore a variety of reference resources while seeking information. atlases, almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, and online search engines as well as library card catalogs are utilized in this lesson.

Use artwork to illicit responses in a writing journal, and then present your class with the short list of key terms provided. Can your learners add any of their own key terms? Segue for a second, and read tales such as Peter Pan or...

Students make an illustrated dictionary of words they've used and learned in class. For this vocabulary lesson, students find words from their notes, discuss the words in a group, select the best words as a class, and complete an...

Students use an internet dictionary to produce a glossary of words related to a particular subject area being studied. They choose the correct meaning of the word for their glossary, based on it's relationship to the subject matter being...

Young scholars read the first part of the Declaration of Independence and mark the words they don't know. First, they try to guess what the words mean by looking at the them in context, and then they look up the words in a dictionary.