Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...

An educational lesson focuses on the idea of conservation of matter through a demonstration of the water cycle, a discussion of digesting food, and the path of carbon and oxygen atoms as they change form. 

To understand the controversy surrounding the US 2000 presidential election, class members investigate the rationale behind the Electoral Collage, the intimidation involved in the election of 1876, and the 2004 American League...

Use Nathanial Hawthorne's immortal text on the influence of religion on the early American settlements, as well as its continued impact on American culture, with a unit that focuses on The Scarlet Letter. In addition to Hawthorne's...

Music, writing, and activism all tell the story of history! The resource uses these elements and more in a presentation to discuss the Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance. Your class views biographies, discusses important events, and...

Before Hamilton, Lin Manuel-Miranda gained fame with In the Heights. A study guide prepares theater goers for a performance of the musical about a group of friends living in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights....

Prior to reading Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, class members use the provided worksheet to list what they know about the Holocaust, what they want to know, and how they will find the information they seek. After...

What would change in your daily life due to a power outage? Here, learners explore the inventions brought to us by the one and only, Thomas Edison, and imagine a day without them. Scholars take part in a grand conversation and write a...

To prepare for a reading of Christopher E. Crowe's Mississippi Trial, 1955, class members create a KWHL chart and begin by generating questions they have about the civil rights movement, slavery, and the death of Emmett...

The reading of a contextual essay launches a study of Black Americans who served in Congress from 1870 through 1887. Young historians identify the African Americans who served during this period, investigate the ways they won national...

The opening chapters of Mark Twain's masterpiece, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, can be daunting for some readers. A reader's theater assignment divides the second chapter of the novel into a seven-role script, allowing...

As part of a study of the American Presidency, groups investigate five topics: Campaigns and Elections, Role and Responsibilities, Life in the White House, Assassination and Mourning, and Communicating the Presidency.

Start off your young English language learners with this packet of materials, which covers three weeks of instructions. After completing the unit, kids will have practiced the letters K through Z, read several story books, talked with...

We often see other countries depicted in movies, but getting a close look at a typical day in the life of a young person from another country isn't as common. Give your pupils such a look with a resource that helps class members...

The emotional and spiritual oppression of slavery in the African-American experience is the focus of this activity. Middle schoolers analyze various texts by Frederick Douglass and Maya Angelou related to freedom and...

What is stereotyping, and how do we handle stereotyping in our daily interactions? Your young historians will not only have the opportunity to learn about the first African American woman to publish a short story–Frances Ellen...

Is it easy to find a job I'll love? Show scholars the importance of understanding the labor market with part three in a five-part series of career and college readiness lesson plans. After learning important vocabulary, learners track...

If it's on the Internet, it must be true—right? How can someone tell if a website contains less-than-truthful information? Savvy surfers evaluate sources in the fifth of a six-part college and career readiness instructional activity...

Learn more about the history and five pillars of Islam with an extensive resource that focuses on the religion's connection to art. Focusing on calligraphy, textiles, and architecture, the packet illustrates the beauty of the artistic...

Look back at the third chapter of The Cay with your class. Pupils will conduct a close reading, taking a second look at a chunk of text and responding to a series of text-dependent questions. Wrap up with an analytical writing prompt...

Where to begin? With the vocational education that provides the skills necessary to gain economic security or with a Liberal Arts education? As part of a study of leaders of the civil rights movement, class members compare and...

Working in groups, middle and high schoolers describe and discuss photographs depicting working conditions experienced by child laborers in the 19th century. They then write a persuasive paragraph supporting an amendment to regulate the...

Class members use the think-pair-share strategy to compare the views of W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington and to consider how each man's backgrounds influenced his philosophy.

As part of the introduction to Edward Bloor's Tangerine, class members generate a KWHL chart listing what they know, what they want find out, how they plan to find this information, and what they have learned or still want to learn.