Learning is never-ending. Scholars learn about effective conclusions as they continue watching a video of an opinion speech. After analyzing the speech's conclusion, they work in small groups to write an ending for their own speeches. 

Compare information from a US population cartogram and a standard US map. Learners draw conclusions about population density by analyzing census data a population distribution. They discover that census data is used to apportion seats in...

Students discuss times they predict what will happen next. They compare this to using the information given in a piece of literature to predict what will happen next in the story. Students listen as the teacher reads an excerpt from The...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

Students examine and draw conclusions from an excerpt from a slave narrative. They analyze excerpts from two recently discovered slave narratives. They draw connections among the narrative excerpts and historical texts by investigating...

Fish, fowl, foul fish, or foul fowl? Just what is a siren? Young scholars listen to a video clip and draw what they imagine when they hear the word "siren." After watching several videos depicting sirens, class members read "The Sirens'...

Read various texts to compare the themes across each text. Learners write a journal entry describing the most beautiful scenery they've seen and use a map of the United States to locate the Sequoia National Park and Muir Woods. They then...

Learners examine pictures of people and draw conclusions about them. Using worksheets, students take a second look and carefully examine the pictures to determine what influenced their perceptions.

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" engages adolescents with its theme about the dangers of complete societal equality. Learners complete a graphic organizer to track literary elements in the story, as well as an inference...

To better understand the migrant experience during the Great Depression, pupils analyze two primary resources: photographs by Dorothea Lange and a U.S. Map that shows the Dust Bowl. They compare and contrast Lange's images to Steinbeck's...

How are chemical reactions affected by gravity? Learners explore the phenomenon of effervescence as part of the Christa's Lost Lessons series. They compare findings in an experiment on effervescence to a video of a similar experiment in...

How does a nation turn into a global superpower? The 16th installment of the 22-part series on American history investigates the rise of the United States to global importance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Groups...

Oral history has brought a multitude of lessons, stories, and factoids to our current knowledge of the past. Let us continue to use oral history traditions through a lesson that encourages pupils to discover and appreciate...

Scholars work in pairs to decide whether leaders wrote the Declaration of Independence for the rich and powerful or for every man. To draw their conclusion, pairs read excerpts from two historians and complete a graphic organizer...

Kids love working with their peers. Get your class into small literature circles and have them complete weekly assignments. Before beginning this week's activity, have each learner write a letter from Esperanza in California to Abuelita...

Introduce your class to the Everest expedition to reenact a 1924 climb by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. Discuss and show pictures of the types of clothing worn at that time and compare it to today's state-of-the-art climbing gear....

Get high school historians to step outside their own shoes by responding to JFK's inaugural address from the perspective of a civil rights activist, a soviet diplomat, or a Cuban exile. After a class discussion about the address,...

After viewing the documentary The Last Roundup, a documentary about the transitioning of Santa Rosa from a privately own island to a National Park, class members debate the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment that permits the...

You want your class to meet all of the Common Core standards, and here is one way to tackle the first speaking and listening standard. Given a theme to focus on from "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" by Leo Tolstoy, small groups come up...

Students complete a literature analysis of fiction texts to study elements of fiction. In this fiction analysis lesson, students read various fiction texts and examine them to learn about fiction elements. Students learn to draw...

Making inferences can be a tricky proposition for middle schoolers. In the lesson presented here, pupils practice the skill of drawing a conclusion and making a judgment - which are what making an inference is all about! There are five...

The conclusion of the American Revolution brought about a new conflict—choosing the stye of government for the newly formed United States. Using the views of both Federalists and Anti-Federalists, learners work in pairs and groups to...

What is poetry? Does hip-hop qualify as poetry? Do Shakespeare's monologues qualify as poetry? Class members grapple with these questions as they examine the poetic elements and themes presented in different texts. Groups of four study...

Class members explore cultural diversity through a variety of texts that showcase the importance of traditions. Then, they interview their family members to research their own cultural background and write their findings on quilt...