University of North Carolina
Essay Exams
For decades, the sight of blue books has struck fear in the hearts of collegians. Those books usually signal an essay exam, the topic of one of the handouts in a larger series on specific writing assignments. Using the handout, writers...
Curated OER
Teaching Debate to ESL Students
Language learners use the debate format to practice formulating, expressing, and defending their ideas. Working in teams, class members develop resolutions, use opinion indicators to express their opinions and reasons, and prepare...
Curated OER
"Who am I?"
Pupils of all ages work in pairs to find information about themselves and record a digital "Who am I?" They observe and measure each other, write clues, and illustrate before having others guess who is described.
Curated OER
Grade A: The Market for a Yale Woman's Eggs by Jessica Cohen
What would it be like to sell your eggs to a couple who can't have children on their own? Could you even imagine it? As most of us have never been in this position, this descriptive essay is really quite interesting. The reading itself...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.7
Your pupils are beginning their research project and are having a hard time narrowing their topics down. If you’re not sure how to help them, then start here. Provided is a student dialogue that works though the issues of narrowing a...
Curated OER
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A viewing of Disney’s 1993 film of The Adventures of Huck Finn launches an examination of the events in and themes of Mark Twain’s story. Viewers respond to prompts on a film story worksheet, engage in full-class discussions, and select...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Frederick Douglass’s Narrative: Myth of the Happy Slave
The firsthand accounts of what it was like to be an enslaved person in the mid-1800s riveted a nation and the issue ultimately led to civil war. Using excerpts from Frederick Douglass's autobiography, budding historians examine what it...
Student Handouts
Logical Fallacies
Help your learners grow their critical thinking and analytical skills by asking them to examine logical fallacies. After reading an example, pupils determine if two sets of premises and conclusions are logical fallacies or not and...
PBS
Setting in To Kill a Mockingbird
Can you understand more about how a person acts by learning about how that person lives? An interactive resource explores the setting of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird with several slides discussing the location, social conditions,...
Curated OER
Fictional Narrative Writing in Mathematics
Fifth graders discuss variety of fictional writing genres and connect each to familiar story that has been read, use creative and analytical skills to develop original piece of fictional writing that incorporates math skill, and share...
Curated OER
Community Journals
Students visit a multimedia online journal as a model for their research and journal about their own communities. They examine writing for themselves and writing for an audience as they study the community and present it in more than one...
Curated OER
Editorial Writing
Students Write a persuasive essay that contains effective introductory and summary statements; arranges the arguments effectively; and fully develops the ideas with convincing proof, details, facts, examples, and descriptions. They write...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 10: Character Development
Make a study of Timothy and his development as a character over the course of the first half or so of The Cay. This idea focuses in particular on chapters 10 through 12. Learners start out by working on double-entry journals created in...
Massachusetts Department of Education
Nostalgia
To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine how...
Curated OER
Acts of Defiance?
Students contemplate, discuss and share responses to critical and analytical questions regarding impending war in Iraq. They write persuasive essays arguing the pros and cons of the United States waging war unilaterally.
Curated OER
Your Story
Students discover ways to learn about the past. In this writing lesson students use a writing web to organize their ideas about how we learn about the past. The students then start a time capsule about their lives.
Curated OER
"Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen
Students complete a variety of activities that revolve around the book "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen. They view and discuss stills from the move "Hoot" and compose original storylines, conduct Internet research about the life of Carl Hiaasen,...
Curated OER
What Is Courage?
Students brainstorm definitions of the word "courage." They work in cooperative groups to complete tasks related to critical lense statements. Students write an essay of critical analysis. They write a first draft, and peer edit . Essays...
Curated OER
The Editing Process
Students read a sample essay and evaluate them in groups. They write their own essay on a topic of their choice and use peer editing. They share their essays with the class.
Student Achievement Partners
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm - "The Fisherman and his Wife"
Help young readers learn to read and interpret complex text independently. Teach young children to ask interpretive questions and use the text itself to answer them. Use art, word play and drama to provide a deeper understanding of...
Mr. Ambrose
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
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...
Novelinks
The Tempest: QAR
Asking questions about a text is an effective way to improve reading comprehension. Apply the Question Answer Response strategy to your unit on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. As kids read each passage, they decide if the answer can...
Curated OER
Understanding Protagonists and Antagonists
How can you tell if a character is a villain? What about a hero? Work on literary analysis with an engaging language arts worksheet. After completing an activity about the four types of conflict, learners fill out a character map about a...
Curated OER
Growth of a Nation: Trading Cards
Learners research and write about events and people that have contributed to the development of Canada. They develop their paragraphing skills and create a package of 10 Canadian History Trading Cards.