How does culture shape perspective? Pupils consider the question as they read an excerpt from Laurence Yep's autobiography, The Lost Garden. Using a graphic organizer, they gather textual evidence and make inferences about the author's...

High schoolers are asked to consider the connections between food, culture, and identity. They read articles and share what they learned in a jigsaw activity, read a short story, and make a claim about the story's theme, backing up their...

Reinforce reading comprehension with a instructional activity about The Archer and the Sun, a Chinese folktale. Kids learn some background information about Chinese culture before reading the story, and answer literacy...

Looking for ideas for your Lunar New Year celebration? Check out an interdisciplinary unit of study that includes lessons in counting, calligraphy, culture, geography, literature, art, and music. Kung-hsi Fa-ts' ai! (May you...

Young learners discover kamishibai, a popular Japanese storytelling art, and explore how these Japanese folktales illustrate the country's cultural themes and values through discussion and storyboarding. 

Gong hei fat choy! Celebrate Chinese New Year with a variety of activities that introduce learners to the Chinese myth of the race that determined which animals earned their place the zodiac.

It's all about perspective! Using the resource, scholars read a third excerpt from Laurence Yep's autobiography, The Lost Garden. As they read, individuals complete graphic organizers using clues from the text to infer the author's...

The National Women's History Museum provides a plan designed to accompany their online CyberExhibit, Chinese American Women; a History of Resilience and Resistance. After examining a series of primary and secondary source documents,...

Scholars ponder the beliefs of Confucianism. After reading several sayings made by Confucius, participants complete a chart filling in what each saying means using their own words. Using the same quotes split in half, pairs match...

Imagine having to give up cell phones, computers, and TV? What would be lost? What gained? An examination of the Drokpa, a nomadic people who live in the grasslands of Tibet, provides class members an opportunity to consider how access...

There's a fine line between reality and fiction. As an end-of-unit assessment, scholars complete worksheets to analyze how Laurence Yep's perspective on being Chinese factors into his novel Dragonwings. Next, pupils engage in a...

An 11-page packet includes three activities to engage pupils in reading Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth. To understand the historical context, class members research a list of topics related to Chinese history and culture. They then...

To launch a unit study of the concept of diversity in World Literature, class members compare Chinua Achebe's essay, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" and Richard Rodriguez's essay, "The Chinese in All of...

Rich in images and information, a teacher's guide to the traditions of Lunar New Year's celebrations in various cultures addresses celebrations of Buddhism and Daoism. It includes background information about the origins of the...

The Last Train Home, a 2009 documentary about China's migrant factory workers, provides viewers with an opportunity to explore how China's emergence as a global manufacturing force is challenging Chinese traditional values like...

The present tense is a helpful skill to review in any language arts classroom. Focusing on statements made in the affirmative and in the negative, a slideshow presentation guides pupils through grammar rules and examples for the simple...

Your land is my land! Young historians investigate the concept of Manifest Destiny used by the United States government to justify western expansion. Jigsaw groups read primary source documents to gain an understanding of the movement...

Young scholars gain insight into how historians record events by engaging in an oral history project. In preparation, class members brainstorm open-ended interview questions and take part in and debrief a mock interview simulation....

New York City is a perfect place to begin a study of multicultural diversity. The largest and the most culturally diverse city in the United States provides the backdrop for a photo essay that features images of cultural and...

Who was Zheng He and why haven't we heard of him? Scholars consider the question as they compare his vast expeditionary force to that of Christopher Columbus. Young historians then ponder the intersection of science, economics, and...

This packet, the first in the series of support materials for the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt thematic units on silly stories, contains enrichment activities for learners who have mastered the basic concepts of the lessons.

ESL/ELD learners are provided extra support with the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt thematic units on silly stories by this packet of activities, exercises, and practice sets.

Here is a great textbook chapter on China's establishment as a communist state in 1949 and the effects of World War II on the nation. The first page prompts learners to complete a timeline activity as they read the material,...

Why are some immigrant groups in the United States embraced while others become disenfranchised? To answer this question, teams investigate why groups emigrated to the US, why some of these these peoples were...