Practice makes perfect, and this lesson provides a rubric to prove it! To improve their ability to read with fluency and expression, readers listen to a series of online stories in order to hear how a well-read story should sound. They...

Students research the concept of magnetism in order to increase understanding of the subject. By accessing information they could explain the concept with a written report used as an end product for assessment.

Youngsters practice retelling a part of their favorite Native American tale to a small group of their peers. Peer partners assess each others performances. To keep comments positive and constructive, consider giving your class sentence...

Your young architects use the Internet to research tall structures or sky scrapers to help in the design of their scale drawings. This is lesson one of three in which learners design, build, and test model skyscrapers for seismic safety....

Using Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, guide your class in the process of identifying unknown terms using context clues and formulating text-based answers. The lesson plan includes a useful worksheet incorporating scaffolding questions on an...

Students search for ways to prevent stress. They conduct self-assessments, plan a stress clinic, research community resources, and write a reflective essay. Students may wear electronic heart rate monitors to demonstrate stress levels.

Pupils review the main points of note-taking to summarize the content of a formal or informal spoken presentation. They hear a guest speaker talk about a pre-arranged topic and take notes during the presentation. Next, they write a...

Most companies have logos to represent them. Ask student teams to come up with their own logos and enter them in a class competition to be screen printed. Groups must include the school initials and the team name and follow a list of...

Looking for a way to bring prewriting into your informative writing unit? Use this lesson to reinforce writing skills in your eighth grade language arts class. Young writers use a web graphic organizer as a prewriting tool for expository...

Eleventh and twelfth graders research and create language-immersion Web-based presentations. They choose a particular theme (family, travel, etc.) to create a webpage on the Internet. They are given a rubric to check their grammar and...

Popcorn is a tasty part of a culminating activity designed to motivate readers to share important literary elements. The popcorn fills the inside of a white paper bag that is transformed on the outside into a presentation tool with the...

Students develop listening and reading skills with the oral reading of a story. The students demonstrate good listening skills using appropriate body language and answering assessment questions. They discuss the story looking for main...

As a practice writing test, fourth graders use the West of the West's documentary Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island and two print resources as source materials for an informative article that identifies information that is...

Young readers plan and draft a book report focusing on the five key components of a novel: plot, character, setting, conflict, and theme. After completing a story board, pupils then prepare a PowerPoint book report that is shown to the...

This resource provides a nice framework for learners to explore the perceived shift in China's policymaking from the idealogical to the practical. While this lesson includes some dated materials (2006 is the most recent...

Learners take a book they've read previously and create a multimedia book report. They use the book report graphic organizer (attached) to plan their PowerPoint presentation. A thorough rubric is provided for you to ease grading. There's...

Advertisers target teenagers. Groups select three magazine advertisements for similar products, analyze the appeals used in each, create a poster that features the persuasive techniques used, and present their findings to the class. The...

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein. The sixth installment of a seven-part series teaches young scientists about the importance of being able to communicate scientific research and...

Students create an "art garment" incoporating personal writings and found quotes with images of life and dreams on a disposable or recycled garment. This lesson includes scoring rubric.

Bring to life the severity of the Espionage and Sedition Acts through a mock trial. Learners have prior knowledge of WWI and the context of these acts. An anticipatory set gets the class discussing the ethics of wartime dissension, and...

Instruct your class on homonyms and homophones. Learners take a pre-test and examine a list of homophones. They also play online word games to practice spelling and usage and write a fairy tale in which they use at least 10 homophones....

In this writing worksheet, students prepare to write a poem about a color they have chosen. First students think about descriptive words pertaining to their color and the 5 senses. The students then write the poem and evaluate it using a...

This is the third in a series of lessons scaffolding the research paper. It purports to teach researchers how to evaluate internet sites, but the lack of links, specific criteria, or site evaluation rubrics would require additional...

Find the age of a fictional sample of rocks using a genuine approach. A well-designed lesson asks young mathematicians to use exponential modeling to analyze half-life. As a project-based learning activity, scholars communicate...