Young scholars examine the Food Guide Pyramid, then keep daily food journals. They evaluate their current nutritional habits and create plans for developing healthier eating habits.

The Renaissance is the theme of a five-week unit designed to boost reading comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, and expository writing skills. Scholars listen to and discuss daily readings and engage in skills practice activities...

Hunkering down in the trenches of World War I, Leland Linman decided to write a journal about his experiences. By reading Linman's entries in the fourth installment of an eight-part lesson series, scholars get a firsthand look at life in...

Learning more about Holden Caulfield's worldview and state of mind is an integral part of understanding J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. A thorough packet of materials pertaining to the unit allow learners to build prior...

Contrary to popular belief, the monster's name in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is not Frankenstein. A teacher's guide for the novel helps readers make sense of key details in the text, define vocabulary words, and discuss prominent...

Examine with your class the practical uses of journals and discover how journal writing can help academically and personally. Pupils discover the different types of journal writing and decide which style works best for them.

An introductory lesson shows learners how pervasive and influential advertising is in our culture; particularly, how teenagers are actively targeted by advertisers. As teenagers, your students already have all the information they need...

Tenth graders create and maintain a ledger, write an essay for the process, and learn to keep financial accounts through the ledger. In this ledger instructional activity, 10th graders define an accounting ledger and create one for the...

Students are required not to change their usual eating pattern while recording everything they eat and drink for 1 day. They evaluate the nutrient composition of their diet, as well as their dietary intake and behavior within the...

Get your class outside to observe their surroundings with a lesson highlighting weather patterns and seasonal changes. First, learners take a weather walk to survey how the weather affects animals, people, plants, and trees during...

Here's a formal plan for what many effective teachers already do: Provide a week's worth of aphorisms and have learners choose one to write about in their journals each day. They reflect on the meaning of each aphorism and project how it...

Instill kindness with a unit all about empathy. Lessons and activities follow a prepare, engage, reflect, and action sequence. Learning experiences include making the classroom a safe environment, peer-invented handshakes, discussions...

A teacher's guide for Kindred provides instructors with a wealth of materials to enrich either a full-class reading or independent study of Octavia E. Butler's popular science fiction novel. The activities are designed to...

Students explore Edgar Allan Poe's most famous short stories. In this Edgar Allan Poe lesson, students complete a 25 page packet of activities where they recognize the features of genres and literary devices Poe uses. Students read "The...

"People never notice anything." As part of their study of The Catcher in the Rye, class members adopt Holden Caulfield's approach and spend time as quiet observers of their surrounding, recording their observations/reflections in a...

Students analyze, discuss and compare sources of inspiration, use of words and imagery, and other differences in writing styles between two featured songwriters. This is an introductory lesson to a creative project unit.

Sixth graders read and discuss the book, The Diary of A Young Girl, by Anne Frank, analyzing the autobiographical writing style of journal writing. They write their personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences of their own daily...

An 11-page packet contains three activities designed for readers of Henry David Thoreau's Walden and Civil Disobedience. In one exercise, groups debate whether Thoreau would today be considered liberal or conservative. For another,...

Students identify, explore, and analyze the effects of their daily exposure to advertising.

Students research the growth of coral. In this coral polyps lesson plan, students simulate the growth of coral by using available materials to grow crystals. Students record observations in a scientific journal.

Bully, bullied, or bystander? Paul Langan's The Bully is the anchor text in a unit that examines bullying and violence. After a close reading of the text, readers imagine themselves as the characters and consider how they would react in...

Some words are best left unspoken.  Words matter, according to Benjamin Zander, conductor, teacher, and lecturer. To illustrate his point, Zander recounts a story told to him by a survivor of Auschwitz. As a result of her experience...

High schoolers write a persuasive essay explaining how religion and/or spirituality serves as both a guide and a source of conflict for both an individual and their culture. They develop a definition for the terms spiritual and...

Tenth graders discover how various writers approach the themes of : alienation and solitude, living life "deliberately" and "phonies." Through reading, journaling, class discussion, and writing assignments they realize the power of the...