Curated OER
Untying the Knot
What are the current trends in divorce? What contributes to this? Examine celebrity relationship trends and how they relate to the general public with this discussion lesson. Middle schoolers analyze the results of a Census Bureau study...
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Cooperative Classroom Text Features Activities
Fifth graders examine text features and create a PowerPoint presentation. In this text features instructional activity, 5th graders go over Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures and text features before they choose one to include in a...
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Autobiographies
Students create an autobiography. In this autobiography lesson, students create a digital autobiography using photographs and captions about their lives. Students will publish their autobiography on the class blog page, as well...
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Not So Simple Machines
Students design a simple machine for a simple machine contest. In this simple machine lesson plan, students design a simple machine that will solve a problem. They draw a diagram, label it, and test the machine before they present it in...
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Blackout!
Students read news reports and first-person accounts of a blackout in a large city and keep weblogs or journals. They take on different roles of people who live in the city or commute there to work and then use their journal accounts to...
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For Richer or for Poorer
Students read about one cross-class marriage and create scenes to dramatize interactions among the family members and consider how class shapes relationships. They imagine the issues faced by cross-class couples by writing a short story.
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Public Land
Students examine the needs of their community for public space and determine the solutions to math problems related to planning landscape designs. They read and discuss an article from the New York Times, create their own designs for a...
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A Shot in the Dark?
Students ask and answer their own questions about smallpox and the smallpox vaccine. They create outlines for an informative CD-ROM that could be distributed to health care professionals.
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A New "Spin" on Nuclear Energy
Students explain how the spin cycle of a washing machine operates. They explore other applications of the centrifuge by reading and discussing the article "Slender and Elegant, It Fuels the Bomb."
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Casting a Wide Net
Students investigate topics that would be suitable for classroom podcasts. They read an online article, write and produce a podcast.
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A Life in Politics
Learners answer a quiz about congressional leaders. They research former majority leaders and create charts about them. They write letters to the current majority leader about a current issue.
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A Penny For Your Thoughts: Cross-Curricular Journal Writing
Learners are introduced to the importance of journal writing. After creating their own journal, they write their thoughts and feelings about different subjects. If they choose to they can share their writings with the class to end the...
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A Measure of Happiness
Students share opinions about the factors that contribute to or detract from their happiness. They create survey to determine how people in their community measure happiness, and write reflections on the relationship between money and...
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Just a "Fellow Traveler" in the Human Experience
Students connect the events of early space exploration to their lives today. After viewing a teacher created gallery, they discuss how the launch of Sputnik and how space exploration in general has positively or negatively affected...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to Literacy Criticism
As learners continue to examine a short story of their choice, they take some time to look at analysis completed by others on the same story. In the eleventh lesson in a series of fourteen, pupils explore various sites for literary...
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The Minority Majority
Students design a census class and school, then tabulate the results. They respond to a sample census, then reflect on why questions of race and national origin are different.
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Be That As It Maya
Creative projects are a great way to engage your class and can be a fun way to assess mastery! Learners create brochures and postcards that might have been created by and for travelers to ancient Mayan cities. They read and discuss the...
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Imagine That!
Enter the fantastical world of "Dungeons and Dragons" and other role-playing games with this lesson from The New York Times. Middle schoolers create the outline for a role-playing game based on their own community. Then, they...
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Technological Twins
Students list comparisons between technology and nature. Then they create superheroes with special animal characteristics and describe how ordinary persons might replicate the changes with technology.
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Showdown on the Frontier
Especially critical following a series of shootings in schools, theaters, and religious buildings, it's safe to say that we need to evaluate the current laws on gun control. Eighth graders read a New York Times article in order to better...
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Technical Merits
What is technical knowledge? The class explores what technical knowledge might mean to an Olympic athlete. They catalog the different types of information that athletes would need to compete in various Winter Olympic sports and develop...
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Local Motives
Investigate current local elections across the United States with this New York Times reading lesson. Using informational text, middle and high schoolers research local elections and create their own news reports about what they...
Health Smart Virginia
Inclusion
Inclusion is the focus of a lesson that looks closely at how to make equal groups in cooperative settings. Using physical education activities, scholars are challenged to create groups quickly and inclusively. After several activities,...
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Speaking Out About Kosovo
Invite your class to reflect on the responsibility of newspapers to act as vehicles for citizens to voice their opinions. Using an article to gain factual info. about gov't strategies in dealing with current events in Kosovo, young...