Need a key to unlock writer's block? Introduce your writers to four easy steps that will release them from their mental prison. The brainstorming worksheet, designed to set free their imaginations, even has an answer key.

How does an author develop and contrast character points of view in a work of literature? Using a graphic organizer, readers continue gathering evidence about character point of view from Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water. Next,...

Plan on using Gone with the Wind as a reading selection? Here's a packet of prompts for activities and assessments.

If readers don't understand key portions of a text, it may seem more like a foe than a friend. The second resource in a series of three ESL lessons designed to accompany the texts in Nature: Friend or Foe makes the texts easier to...

A parent's influence on a child is one of the most formative factors in developing life. Discuss the importance of the parental relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights with a written...

A short story is only as strong as its characters, development, and conflicts. Encourage the young authors in your class to plan their stories based on the elements of narrative writing, all provided in brainstorming graphic organizers.

Make note of what readers know, what to know, and have learned during a unit on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. As class members read the book, they jot down their ideas on a KWHL chart, and consider what they have...

Prepare for a mid-unit assessment based on Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club with a brainstorming and discussion lesson plan. Focused on two chapters from the novel ("Rules of the Game" and "Two Kinds"), the lesson plan guides tenth graders...

A thorough unit on literary analysis and character development culminates in a final writing assessment. Prompted to compare the parent-child relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, high...

What happens when a tenuous grasp on sanity begins to slip? Compare Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and Emily Dickinson's "I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain" with a lesson plan focused on developing a common central idea. High...

Wrapping presents, singing Christmas carols, writing Christmas cards and learning holiday vocabulary are all wrapped into this one exciting ESL instructional activity.

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

Would your ideal science lab be filled with bubbling beakers and zapping Tesla coils? Or would it contain state-of-the-art computer technology and data analysis? Dream big with an innovative lesson that connects math and language...

This is the perfect resource for helping youngsters understand the importance of physical activity in their daily lives. The lesson and its worksheets focus on brainstorming a variety of fitness activities, such as games you can...

From understanding stock market performance and return on investment to identifying the costs and benefits of credit and avoiding debt problems, this is an absolute must-have resource for financial planning and literacy.

It's no secret that children can be very opinionated, but rather than fight against this natural tendency, embrace it with this primary grade writing project. After a shared reading of a children's book about...

Get your movers and shakers grooving to the beat with this series of musical activities designed to meet everyone's needs! Ten games, using an assortment of instruments, bring awareness to one's body, brain, and social interactions in a...

A creative way bring autobiographical writing to your poetry unit or back-to-school curriculum, this lesson plan guides you through a bio poem activity. Kids use the graphic organizer to describe themselves using adjectives, things...

Parades are a joy to watch and learn about. Class members read about a child who attended a parade with her mother and brother, match past tense verbs from the reading, identify and fill in blanks for sight words candy,...

Lesson 7 focuses on building academic vocabulary and writing an explanatory letter with supported textual evidence. For the first five minutes of the lesson, the educator reminds the class of how to read and refer to the accordion...

Scritch, scratch, scritch. It's the sound of pupils writing poetry! Focus on sensory language and onomatopoeia with a writing lesson. After listening to some sounds, learners examine a couple of poems that include sound words and then...

Get things moving with this elementary science unit on simple machines. Through a series of nine lessons including teacher demonstrations, hands-on activities, and science experiments, young scientists learn about forces, motion,...

Delve into Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis before opening the book with a lesson on literary themes. High schoolers engage in a word association activity before reading a list of statements based on the book's...