In these critical reading worksheets, students read the paragraphs about paper. Students answer 3 critical reading questions about the passage.

What makes writing literary? What comprises analysis? A 15-slide PowerPoint presentation, created by the Purdue University Writing Lab, tackles these questions. The explanations of what makes writing literary and what comprises analysis...

After listening to a story learners engage in a kinesthetic activity to answer comprehension and critical thinking questions. Finally, the students identify three main facts about the story. Extensions include a fact and opinion...

What events led up to the Hundred Years War?  In small groups or pairs the class discusses several critical thinking questions and then writes a fictional dialogue that depicts both an English and a French point of view. 

The similarities and differences between academic and everyday summaries/abstracts are explored in this PowerPoint. After reading "Historiographic Reflection on Israel’s Origins: The Rise and Fall of the Patriarchal Age,” and abstracts...

The dialect words for types of food from across the British Isles get pupils thinking about native dialects and how they differ from Standard English. Class members create a dialect dictionary and discuss the difference between accent...

Examine a variety of literary responses to Abraham Lincoln's death and the impact of perception. Your class can work in writing groups to analyze either poetry, eulogy, or a newspaper article. They retell the events of Abraham Lincoln's...

After your class reads Neat People vs. Sloppy People and Batting Clean-up and Striking Out, provide them with this resource. Use it as a quiz or a homework assignment to assess your class's understanding of the author's...

Explore the story The Color of My Words by Lynn Joseph using this resource. Learners answer comprehension questions, fill in graphic organizers, and write a poem.

The national epidemic of opioid addiction is making its way into high school populations. Educate the students in your class about the ways prescription opioids can both block pain and deliver large amounts of dopamine that make it very...

Are marches and protests an effective form of resistance? That is the question high schoolers seek to answer in this inquiry lesson as they compare the 2020 protests to historical ones. Researchers use Venn Diagrams to compare images...

Shapes are so fun! Little ones explore, identify, and create shapes using tangrams or pattern blocks. The activity is intended to stimulate critical thinking while engaging learners through play and shape identification. Each child will...

Pirates ahoy! Readers go on an adventure using a novel study for Treasure Island as they research and write about a modern-day pirate story. Additionally, scholars practice writing similes and alliteration before answering comprehension...

Foster critical thinking skills by using the DR-TA Strategy with Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Class members read portions of the essay, stop and discuss what is happening, make predictions based on evidence from the text, and...

After experiencing how quick and easy it is to make judgments as part of an opening activity, learners discuss the concept of a stereotype and the need to think critically and question our immediate assumptions.

Your 11th and 12th graders are ready to critique society! Channel that inclination by studying a novel that offers social criticism of other eras (book recommendations included). This resource presents a well-thought-out overview of such...

"What should we have for dinner?" "What am I eating?" "Where did it come from?" These three questions are at the heart of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Pollan's book provides some very...

Recognize risky behaviors and avoid them! That's the big idea behind two activities designed to teach middle schoolers to think critically about online safety. After reading background articles about protecting online identity,...

Comparing two texts can build a greater understanding of the texts and themes of the works. Take some time to follow the steps here to guide your pupils through the process of composing compare-and-contrast essays.

Can authors speak to each other across works, genres, and centuries? Study the conversation between Christopher Marlowe in his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and the responses by Sir Walter Raleigh and William Carlos Williams...

Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club brings together the central ideas of identity, ambition, expectations, and relationships. As high schoolers read an excerpt from the chapter "Two Kinds," they note how Jing-Mei's connection to music relates to...

You have the power! Scholars learn that they have power of the pen in their writing. After reading and viewing various sources about standardized testing, they express their own opinions about the testing by writing letters to the...

As you work through a literary analysis unit based on Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," use a writing assessment to measure your class's skills. They choose one epigraph from the story to analyze and track...

Karen Russell's short story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" has a unique structure that adds value to the story. With the fourteenth activity in a unit about literary analysis and textual support, analyze how Russell has...