High schoolers select a theme-related essay topic from Night, by Elie Wiesel, or The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, and develop an essay that relates the theme to modern-day personal experiences. The essay follows a preset rubric...

Slavery in India, Sudan, and Mauritania? What about in the United States? Groups research modern slavery in these four countries, collecting factual evidence (What), determine their feelings about this evidence (So what),...

It's one thing to read history, it's another to live it. Pupils examine secondary and primary sources that detail the training of soldiers before deployment. Then, they consider the impact of primary sources on how they understand the...

Students identify controversial topics on which they have strong opinions and model their own persuasive opinion pieces after the featured article. They compose persuasive essays on controversial issues that "hit home" for them.

Twenty-eight lessons make a unit that focuses on skills practice. Lessons explore r-controlled vowels, past tense verbs, nouns, adjectives, and two-syllable words. Pupils read a story, answer questions, and draft a descriptive essay...

Fourth graders delve into the United States Constitution in a unit designed to boost reading comprehension, grammar, and writing. During each lesson, scholars read through and discuss a new chapter and work with prefixes and verbs....

A lot of writers don't like creating an outline before writing the first draft of their paper. Introduce them to what an effective and organized outline looks like with this presentation. Designed for higher education, you could easily...

Use this communication skills lesson to emphasize evaluating a speaker's main point and argument. After reading Martin Luther King's, "I Have a Dream Speech" and John F. Kennedy's speech, "I Believe in an America Where the Separation of...

Is history "little more than a relic," as one of the characters in "The Palace Thief" contends? Has Hundert's love of antiquity kept him from changing with the times? Readers consider how the author uses these conflicting views to...

Useful in an Of Mice and Men unit, or in a unit that focuses on descriptive writing, this lesson plan prompts young authors to impersonate John Steinbeck's writing style in the opening passages of the novel. A Six Trait writing...

The Women's Rights movement is the focus of an engaging and collaborative exercise, in which young historians use information found in textbooks, class notes, and the provided documents to craft a DBQ essay.

Discuss the definition of parallel structure with your high school class. In small groups, they read a section of "The Declaration of Independence" to identify examples of parallel structure. Each learner writes an essay explaining the...

When your class members have completed the novel Esperanza Rising, they will be ready to write an expository essay on how Esperanza responds to events and what this says about her character. Set your pupils up for success by...

A thorough unit on literary analysis and character development culminates in a final writing assessment. Prompted to compare the parent-child relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, high...

Children have rights! Exploring those rights and using media to express those rights is the focus of this Media Awareness Network lesson. Although some of the law links reflect the Canadian Articles of The Convention, the majority of the...

Wrap up your unit on The Cay with an engaging argumentative writing assignment. Writers must decide if they believe The Cay should be banned. The resource includes links to several articles, which have been addressed and examined in...

Get the youngest American citizens involved in the presidential election and inauguration with a set of social studies activities. Focusing on the history of presidential inauguration ceremonies, learners draft their own poems, design...

Students in upper-level college-bound English classes review the editing process and terms such as, tone, diction, transition, and conclusion. They read and evaluate a sample essay and identify parts they feel they could improve on. ...

Third graders write an essay which answers the question, "What kind of student do you want to be?"

Students write an essay comparing and contrasting two like items. In this informative writing instructional activity, students use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast a cracker and an Oreo cookie. Students write an informative five...

Young scholars explore the implications of the draft during the Vietnam War. In this Vietnam lesson, students analyze the lyrics of songs that explore differents opinions of the Vietnam draft. Young scholars particpate in a...

Students author a problem and solution essay. In this environmental stewardship lesson, students conduct research and write an essay regarding an environmental topic of their choosing.

High schoolers submit rough drafts of position papers and post them on computer networks for review.

Eighth graders are introduced to the mechanics of writing a standard-form essay. They draft, edit and polish a five-paragraph essay about spending the day as an animal of their choice.