What experiences lead people to change and how do they do it? After reading about Cole's encounter with Touching Spirit Bear, readers complete the second out of a series of five activities to predict future events in the text. The...

Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address provides the text for a series of close reading exercises that model for instructors how carefully crafted guiding questions can help readers think critically about what they read, thus developing...

Readers learn to ask questions about text with an activity based on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. As they read, class members craft questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy and then find the answers themselves.

Even though readers investigate matters of the heart, this activity promotes the inner workings of learners' brains. The fifth lesson of six has the teacher first model the strategy to the class before having small groups practice. To...

Get your class ready to read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard with an anticipation guide. This document describes exactly how to create and implement an anticipation guide.

Collaborate with your class after reading William Shakespeare's The Tempest with a group labeling activity. As you note key concepts or words from the play on the board, class members suggest associations and connections...

Readers read more closely when they think critically about a text. Discuss the words and concepts from Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea with a class activity that asks readers to not only record...

Teach learners to reflect on their reading with a lesson about double-entry journals. As they read Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, class members note interesting passages from the text on the left side of their...

Delve into Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis before opening the book with a lesson on literary themes. High schoolers engage in a word association activity before reading a list of statements based on the book's...

Bring the drama of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea to class with a fun role-playing activity. Given a list of survival items, readers decide which items would be the most necessary for an adventure like...

More than half the world's population eats rice as a daily staple ... imagine if that rice could prevent illness. Scientists genetically engineered rice to include vitamin A for just that purpose. However, room for debate still exists....

Promote critical thinking and literary analysis with a short activity. Readers of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart respond to a series of questions modeled on Bloom's Taxonomy.    

Start with the question in mind with a discussion activity on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. With four focus questions, note-taking prompts, and discussion points, readers practice answering thematic questions based on textual evidence.

From the time of its publication, Uncle Tom's Cabin has been controversial. To better understand the debate, class members first examine a broadside decrying the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and then two newspaper reviews of the...

A quick mimi-lesson models how to replace a fixed mindset with a growth mindset, a mindset that says improvement is possible with practice. Included is an activity that asks individuals to rewrite 10 fixed mindset statements with 10...

To conclude their study of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, class members assume the voice of Amir and write a letter to Hassan, Amir's childhood companion.

If you could pick characteristics you would want your child to possess, what would they be? To better understand Okonkwo, one of the key characters in Things Fall Apart, class groups engage in an activity that asks them to consider this...

An informative list compiled with quotes, authors, and discussion questions, along with 20 out-of-the-box application ideas, make up the collection of lessons geared to spark dialogue and creative thinking about quotations. 

To generate interest in some of the major issues in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, class members engage in a four corners activity that asks them or agree or disagree with a series of statements and provide reasons for their...

Young scholars demonstrate their knowledge of geography with this fun, collaborative social studies project. Working in small groups, students develop their very own countries, writing descriptions...

Discover the family histories that make the classroom with a family tree activity. Scholars locate information about their family, construct a family tree, and work together to tally where family members are born.  

Considering adding more research to your curriculum? Check out this idea. The assignment example, which connects to the Common Core, is written for a lesson on "The Scarlet Ibis." However, you could adapt the bigger idea to almost any...

Students participate in alphabetizing letters, coming up with questions and concepts, and show the rules of phonics by playing a game for a unit opener. In this language arts lesson plan, students also come up with thinking maps.

Designed to help students think about their reading and writing skills, this page offers three different ways to interpret and discuss texts.