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.

How do people solve problems in healthy ways? Writers explore a topic of interest in their multi-genre writing assignment exploring Zach's Lie. The final resource in a series of seven includes multiple scaffolds and organizers for...

One of water's claims to fame is as the universal solvent. Young physical scientists experiment to discover which materials dissolve in this special compound. You could never be more prepared for teaching this instructional activity than...

Challenge the addition skills of young learners with this open-ended math problem. The task is simple, get from start to finish by connecting a series of three numbers. The trick is that the sum of the numbers must be less than...

Everybody's a critic—even your pupils! Using the included resources as a guide, screen films related to social justice and ask film enthusiasts to critique them. Publish the reviews for your school community or develop a film festival...

With a partner, youngsters measure their pulse and breathing rates, both at rest and after running in place for a minute. While this activity is not novel, the lesson plan includes a large-scale classroom graphing activity and other...

Learning to break apart numbers into smaller pairs is a critical step young mathematicians take as they develop their number sense. To practice this skill, children are provided with sets of three numbers and are asked to pick the two...

Class members adopt the role of Law and Order history investigators and examine primary source documents to determine the legitimacy of Marco Polo's claim that he traveled to and traded in China. A cleverly crafted...

Class members identify bullying in contemporary texts and role play how they might change those scenes to examples of anti-bullying. They then re-define their initial definitions of bullying and discuss what they...

To prepare for a study of intellectual property rights, (or an assessment) introduce your learners to the legal concepts and key vocabulary associated with the debate. After defining intellectual property, copyright, fair use, and...

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...