Using or considering using Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God? Then this packet is a must for your curriculum library. The examination of how Hurston combines folklore and folk language to create the voice of her...

Give your emerging poets a topic (or have them choose one themselves), and have them play with different poetic devices. They work on alliteration, rhyme, metaphor, personification, simile and onomatopoeia. Consider having them choose...

Interviewing skills are important, even outside of a news reporter's desk or employer's office. Take your class through the process of interviewing people they don't know with a set of case studies featuring journalists and various...

Just because a story is on the news doesn't mean it's being presented fairly. Analyze news broadcasts with a lesson focused on evaluating television journalism. At home, kids watch a news show and note the stories presented, including...

Thinking of assigning a research paper? Get writers off on the right foot with a lesson that introduces the BEAM research model. Writers brainstorm the background of their topic, explicate the aspects of their topic, consider the...

Use your tablets to participate in a culture-sharing project with a class in a foreign country. Your class can communicate and share ideas with a class in another country, swapping information regarding language and culture. Together you...

Put an end to wasted instructional time with this lesson on responsibility and preparedness. After completing this series of activities students will learn the importance of these social skills not only in the classroom, but at...

Learn everything from sight words to French vocabulary with this versatile study app. While the material that comes pre-loaded on the app is mostly based on learning how to read and spell, the app has the potential to be useful for any...

There is a reason why an Oscar is given each year for the Best Adaptation Screenplay. Adaptations are the focus of an exercise that asks class members to compare a work of literature with a least one adaptation of the work into a...

Learners examine health issues that are associated with our fast food culture, and the advertising of it. They begin with a snack-food survey to assess their own eating habits. Pupils are encouraged to think critically throughout the...

Time to go on a quote hunt! Because learners cannot interview real eye witnesses for their newspaper articles, they read through text The Great Earthquake and Fires of 1906 looking for quotes to answer their questions. Learners...

The verbal techniques and emotional appeals contained in the language used in political ads plays a vital role in creating the impact of the ad. As class members continue their study of Presidential campaign commercials from 1952–2012,...

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

This resource is part of a three-activity unit that introduces your class to the concept of popular culture and the role that it plays in their lives. Here, learners examine the importance of the music industry and music videos in pop...

Integrate history, math, and art into a study of The Grapes of Wrath with a series of activities that ask learners to investigate the social, political, economic, and environmental factors at play during the 1930s. Designed to be used...

Hook your class into an exploration of and discussion about violence in video games with a cute animal clip and a video game trailer. After a quick discussion about how media can affect mood, class members read a related article and...

Believe it or not, everyone plays a role in Internet advertising. Scholars explore the topic with a podcast about Internet advertising and personal identity. Next, partners plan and produce their own public service announcements to...

Research, role-playing, and reflection are the three “R’s” that form the basis of an examination of Cyberbullying. Although based on the Criminal Code of Canada, the included scenarios and case studies provide valuable resources for a...

Video games may not be so bad after all. As scholars read the text "The Many Benefits, for Kids, of Playing Video Games," they summarize the gist in their researchers' notebooks. Next, pupils draft supporting research questions based on...

It is much easier for kids to know they have reached a goal when that goal is clearly defined. By providing sixth graders with a checklist of Common Core reading standards written in "I can" format, each child can keep track of his own...

The ultimate legacy of Emmett Till's violent death is its role in the non-violent roots of the Civil Rights Movement. A lesson plan compares contemporaneous articles with the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "The Death of Emmett Till" and prompts...

Voices from the past. Young scholars listen to a podcast interview with a historical re-enactor as they continue their research in the eleventh instructional activity of this unit on colonial trade. Applying their close reading skills,...

Learners explore play writing.  In this literacy and technology lesson, students choose a familiar historical event and write a play with the corresponding setting.  Learners write text and dialogue, produce sound recordings,...

Creative projects are great ways to increase interest in topical research. Middle schoolers learning about primitive life styles in the Americas explore the importance of music to hunter gatherers. They research and create musical...