Readers learn to ask questions about text with an activity based on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. As they read, class members craft questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy and then find the answers themselves.

How much can you learn about an important topic from a single image? High schoolers analyze an infographic that represents the number of stops performed during the Stop and Frisk police procedure. After building background information...

For 30 years, Long John Silver has sailed the seas. An eBook version of Treasure Island introduces readers to the tales Long John Silver has to tell. This 1883 version of the text includes an introduction to encourage critical...

Reading the news is fun, and that's a fact! With the lesson plan, scholars differentiate between fact and opinion as they read editorial articles. They complete a worksheet to analyze the information before writing their own editorials...

Germany seemed to be unstoppable in the early years of World War II, but the tireless and sacrificial work of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) helped to steer the war in another direction. After exploring primary source documents,...

Introduce middle schoolers to the different strategies used when reading prose versus poetry. Groups use a Venn diagram and a poetry analysis handout to compare the characteristics of an informational text and a  poem on the same...

Take a moment in your Harry Potter unit to assess comprehension. Readers use knowledge gained for the text and from their own experience to answer seven questions based on events in chapters four and five of Harry Potter and...

Data indicates that some racial groups smoke more than others, and that with that racial group, there are smaller groups whose smoking habits vary as well. Secondary learners read a graph that details the differences between the Asian...

Do reporters write about what they see, or what they think? Examine the differences between investigative writing and opinion writing with a instructional activity from PBS. Learners look over different examples of each kind of...

Young historians practice in-depth, quality analysis of primary source texts in this three-lesson unit, which examines excerpts from the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Caleb...

Help your class examine humanity's unpredictable nature through "Life Steps Almost Straight." Learners read various works from philosophers such as Viktor Frankl, The Buddha, and Nietzsche to gather textual evidence and explain their...

If you've never heard of the Equal Rights Amendment, it's probably because there isn't one in the United States Constitution. Delve into the contentious history behind the ERA, its founders and supporters, and reasons for its political...

As you work through a literary analysis unit based on Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," use a writing assessment to measure your class's skills. They choose one epigraph from the story to analyze and track...

Karen Russell's short story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" has a unique structure that adds value to the story. With the fourteenth activity in a unit about literary analysis and textual support, analyze how Russell has...

The devil—and the truth—is in the details. As ninth graders approach the ending of Sophocles' Oedipus the King, they analyze the words of the Messenger and apply these details to the central ideas of fate and prophecy.

Vivid quotes and strong sensory language compose Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, bringing the women to life as they navigate through issues surrounding identity and maternal relationships. Examine Waverly's relationship with her mother...

It is all relative, or is it all conditional? Using an exploration method, the class determines whether there is an association between gender and superpower wish through the use of calculating conditional relative frequencies. The...

As one of the few AP tests that count for second year college course credit, the AP Physics 2 exam requires a higher level of knowledge than most. Help young scientists study for their upcoming AP Physics 2 exams with previous...

Use a handy concept analysis guide as you begin your unit on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. With character descriptions, literary themes, and anticipated affective issues, the guide can help those new to using The Tempest craft...

Good discussion questions, quizzes, and tests teach as well as assess. Readers of The Great Gatsby will learn much from the materials in a 36-page packet designed to help students prepare for the AP Literature exam. Included in the...

"Words, words, words." Despite Hamlet's opinion, words can be significant. In this inquiry lesson, middle schoolers learn how the words in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, in the view of many, lead to the American Civil War. To...

Are marches and protests an effective form of resistance? That is the question high schoolers seek to answer in this inquiry lesson as they compare the 2020 protests to historical ones. Researchers use Venn Diagrams to compare images...

Though often used in shows of patriotism, Bruce Springsteen's 1985 song "Born in the U.S.A." is critical of America's role in the Vietnam war and its treatment of American veterans. High schoolers analyze the song's lyrics in an activity...

Scholars generally agree on the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. This inquiry-based lesson asks high schoolers to consider more than the claims of who freed the enslaved people but the significance of the issues...