Teach your class about colony collapse disorder and foster discussion about causes and solutions for the honeybee problem. Class members read and discuss an article and participate in one of two detailed activities about pollination and...

Students analyze a graphic from an article and predict what the article might be about. After reading an article, they discover a journalist's experience of traveling across the United States to compare fast food restaurants. They...

Have your high schoolers learn about the modern history of Myanmar by close-reading an article about the city and people of the city Yangon. As they'll learn, the country is going through some dramatic transitions. After...

Even lawyers can find the US Constitution to be very wordy! Help learners create a foundation for understanding the Constitution with several analysis essays. Multiple activities complement the reading and allow for active and meaningful...

Why did Vietnam POWs and their families receive more media attention than POWs in previous wars?  To answer this question, class members view artifacts, read articles, and engage in class discussion. Individuals then assume the...

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...

Get your class to use the scientific process to solve a scientific problem. They utilize the Natural Inquirer magazine to identify a research question which they write an introduction to and collect data to answer. They use graphs,...

Here's resource that presents step-by-step directions for three different activities that ask kids to read a short passage, listen for the main points, and then to summarize the passage in their own words.

Discover how copying nature can be beneficial to humans. Scholars read articles about examples of biomimicry and its potential applications. Along the way, they learn about Nature's Nine Laws and how they relate to biomimicry. This is...

Here's a handy two-part learning exercise that uses an article about plants to assess reading comprehension. After reading the passage, kids answer questions based on the information in the text.

Sit back, relax, and transport to 1787! This lesson on the Constitution begins with guided imagery of the Constitutional Convention. The class reads A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution in an...

Immigration issues are nothing new. An interesting lesson focuses on the racially motivated Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its impact on the Chinese American community. Scholars read articles, analyze political cartoons, and...

Spruce up a class reading of the children's book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback with this fun series of activities. Starting with a list of reading comprehension questions and key vocabulary to address during a teacher...

Sometimes a novel is the best way to tackle a tough topic. A helpful educator's guide for the novels of Gayle Forman discuss tough topics such as teenage suicide. Discussion questions and writing activities encourage readers to think...

Jump back into expository writing and analysis at the start of a new school year! Start with a review of an authors' stylistic choices in diction, syntax, treatment of subject matter, and figurative language. Writers choose a text to...

Real or fantasy? Dogzilla, the Giant of Barletta, the Garden of Abdul Gassazi. To enrich their understanding of incredible stories, teams create a mouse newspaper and report on the invasion of Dogzilla, craft folktales, and draft a...

One picture but a thousand stories. As a part of a case study of how the death of Michael Brown was reported by professional news sources and on social media class members examine the reactions of various groups to a photograph taken by...

Grow an understanding of short story with a well-sequenced plan built around an Academy Award-winning short film. Class members explore the elements of an effective short story, and practice writing their own. They also watch the short...

In this current world events worksheet, students read an article about Iran test-firing missiles and complete eight true or false questions, 10 synonym matching questions, 10 phrase matching questions, and a cloze activity based on the...

Kids use their own words or phrases as they fill in the missing parts of an article about a man who crossed Niagara Falls via tightrope. They read the article and use the word list at the bottom of the page to fill in the blanks. 

Have your class participate in an interview activity using an informational text about the Amazon. After reading a Cultural Connections story about a person from the Amazon, middle schoolers write interview questions based on the text....

The class will make observations to determine how environment has shaped the way particular birds and fish eat. They will view a series of photographs, read two short articles, and then consider how food availability has determined how...

To help learners better comprehend informational texts, they work through a series of activities. They discuss strategies, make predictions, skim passages, focus on key words, and practice taking notes. This lesson focuses on what to do...

Class members examine human migration. For this population instructional activity, they read an article entitled, "Freedom of Movement" and respond to discussion questions about the article related to guest worker programs.