In a single, soundly-designed class period, high schoolers define good character, think-pair-share about thought-provoking quotes on character (More options would enhance the discussion, worth searching online for other quotes to add.),...

What is liberty rhetoric? Examine how people have used it in four different time periods and situations. High schoolers investigate original source documents and compare them with the Declaration of Independence to decide how liberty...

Who doesn't love music? Poems and songs will engage your high school class in a discussion about irony. Use songs like "Rockin' in the Free World" or "Born in the U.S.A." to illustrate the ironic point of view. Print the lyrics so...

Set a purpose for reading informational texts with this reading instructional activity. To find the central idea of a text, young readers turn titles and subtitles into questions to help them understand the text. They complete a T-chart...

Save the Lofty Trees, by Leslie Mills, provides the text for a study of the roles of animals and humans in the forest. Richly detailed, the plan offers two approaches to the play: as a scenario for children to imagine what actions would...

Explore the idea of democratic poetry. Upper graders read Walt Whitman, examining daguerreotypes, and compare Whitman to Langston Hughes. They describe aspects of Whitman's I Hear America Singing to Langston Hughes' Let America Be...

Determine how African-Americans have broken barriers in this history instructional activity. Middle schoolers discuss the 15th Amendment and the American civil rights movement prior to analyzing Barack Obama's speech "A More Perfect...

Before beginning F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, create a historical context of the Roaring 20s with this lesson. Set up a gallery walk with the provided PowerPoint, which features 10 topics related to the 1920s. Then begin...

Explore reading comprehension and child safety in this young adult literacy lesson. High schoolers practice using context clues to figure out word meanings after observing a teacher model this process. They read an article about child...

Reciting poetry is a great way to build oral language skills and build classroom community. Pupils look at the text elements of poetry and choose a poem to read aloud. They focus on rhythm, fluency, and expression. This is a great way to...

Dander from the show Twisted Whiskers and characters from My Little Pony are featured in this three part lesson that explores using story pyramids to scaffold ideas, adding sensory details to enrich writing, and editing using common...

Merge technology and wellness. Class members complete inquiry-based research on a personal wellness issue and create an annotated bibliography, uploading their completed work to their personal wellness websites. Prior to beginning, your...

Demonstrate how to engage in a polite and professional conversation with this banking and interfacing activity. Focusing on explanatory and informaitonal texts, middle schoolers write sentences using banking and finance terminologies....

While all learners need to know the benefits and responsibilities of working in a small group, this presentation and its vocabulary are geared toward a late high school or early college student. Why do we study in small groups? Why do...

Does your class know the meaning of abjure, perjury, certify, discriminate, illegitimate, and relegate? Find out by assigning this exercise, where learners choose both a synonym and an antonym from a word list to go along with each...

Direct your class’s attention to the elements that make their community unique. After examining sample travel brochures, groups select something from their community to use as the subject, and then research, create, and publish a...

The Nashua River serves as the focal point of an investigation of the treatment of and care for natural resources. A reading of A River Rand Wild: An Environmental History by Lynne Cherry, launches the study and class members consider...

Kndergarteners work to build strong listening and reading comprehension skills by answering higher level questions. After a teacher demonstration of the task, learners listen to the story The Three Little Pigs, the teacher asks them...

Study cause and effect in both literature and informational text with a activity designed for several different reading levels. After kids review the concept of cause and effect, they read an article or story and note the causes and...

Your kids can identify the plot sequence of a short story, but what about an informational article? Have them examine the chronological order of events in informational texts with a instructional activity on the sequence of events. 

What happens next? Work on story sequence with a lesson that prompts kids to put a story back in order. Additionally, they discuss what would happen if one event was missing from the sequence.

The ability to analyze an argument is a skill emphasized by the Common Core standards. Offer your class an opportunity to develop and hone their skills by providing them the testimonies in an Oregon court case. After reading the facts of...

Prepare your readers for Briar Rose with an Anticipation Guide that asks them to agree or disagree with a series of statements that reflect issues raised by Jane Yolen’s narrative about a young girl’s research into her grandmother’s...

“Poor people are poor because they are lazy and don’t work enough.” “If you are desperate, the means justify the ends.” Prior to reading Cry, The Beloved Country, class members complete an anticipation guide that focuses on issues raised...