Everything evolved from a common ancestor, but how did modern plants and animals develop so many more genes? Scholars use an online interactive to learn about the process. They begin to understand common genes with an animation, multiple...

The second lesson of a pair about Paul Laurence Dunbar, this plan focuses in particular on his poem, "We Wear the Masks." After a short historical introduction, class members conduct a series or readings, marking up the text and...

Here is a turnkey lesson that walks young statisticians through the development and uses of conditional probability. From dice games to surveys, Venn diagrams to frequency tables, the class learns how a given can effect the overall...

What led to the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and how might historians approach this question differently? This rich series of lessons includes a short introductory video clip, analysis of six primary source documents, and...

It doesn't get simpler than this. Scholars first learn to simplify radicals by determining the prime factors of the radicand. The instructional activity progresses to simplifying radicals involving algebraic expressions in the radicand.

What's the difference between men and princes? Machiavelli discusses this distinction in chapter 18 of The Prince. Scholars first listen to a masterful reading of the chapter. Then, they write about how the author develops a central idea...

Now that learners have honed their inquiry-based projects down to their strongest few questions, they can conduct independent research. High schoolers pursue answers to their inquiries while assessing sources, establishing a research...

How far would your pupils go to be able to have access to books? Revisit Heather Henson and David Small's That Book Woman and challenge class members to take on the role of Cal or the Book Woman. By putting themselves in someone else's...

Analyze poetry in a group setting. Middle and high schoolers read lyrics to a Tom Petty song and free write about the song's tone, setting, and speaker. They then complete the same activity in a group setting using seven poems. The...

Car For sale! In this GED prep lesson, writers develop a classified advertisement to sell a car. After a discussion of precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language, sellers draft their ad for review, revision and...

Identify the unique personal attributes of your class members. Begin by viewing the Visual Thesaurus and discussing displayed attributes associated with famous American leaders. Using these identity maps as models, pupils generate nouns...

What are the different ways that people can invest in their human capital for a better future? Pupils participate in an engaging hands-on activity and analyze data regarding unemployment, the ability to obtain an education, and median...

In groups, learners review one of four selected Supreme Court cases. The whole class watches a video introducing the four cases, and then small groups dive into Internet research in an attempt to write a two-paragraph summary of the...

Tornadoes, blizzards, and hurricanes, oh my! In this lesson, meteorology majors compare stories of historical storms written by two or more different sources. As a result, they understand how the media portrays such catastrophes and...

What could be more relevant to teens and preteens than experiencing stress? Use an article from the New York Times website to practice valuable Common Core skills for informational text reading, and also get a discussion going in your...

Take flight with a fun activity focused on graphing data on a coordinate plane. As learners study the data for Granny's hot-air balloon trip, including the time of day and the distance of the balloon from the ground, they practice...

Understanding arrays is very similar to understanding the relationship between multiplication and area. Give your third graders an opportunity to practice identifying area models that relate repeated addition and multiplication. They...

Looking for an assessment that reveals how well readers understand complex text? Check out an assessment module based on "The Gettysburg Address." Pupils are asked to craft an essay that demonstrates their understanding not only of...

What if you were paid to attend class? What kind of payment schedule would you choose? Learn how exponential functions will eventually exceed linear functions by comparing two different payment schedules for attending class.

How are chemical reactions affected by gravity? Learners explore the phenomenon of effervescence as part of the Christa's Lost Lessons series. They compare findings in an experiment on effervescence to a video of a similar experiment in...

Let your learners be the judges for a series of case studies that focus on broadcast codes in Canada. In order to familiarize your class with the codes and guidelines that govern the broadcasting industry, in particular Canada's...

You can often track a character's development based on others' reactions to their words or actions. Using Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," ninth graders work in a jigsaw activity to analyze how Mirabella's...

Why is Romeo and Juliet considered a tragedy? Class members conclude their reading of the play, focusing on the final lines of Act 5, scene 3. They also consider how Shakespeare structures the text, orders events, and manipulates time to...

Did Bernie Madoff fit the profile of a Ponzi schemer because, as Diana Henrique contends in an excerpt from her The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death, he “did not fit the profile of a Ponzi schemer”? Huh? Groups begin their...