From lonely to luggage, it would be nearly impossible to have a modern-day conversation without using words that William Shakespeare coined. A Twelfth Night study guide introduces individuals to fun Shakespeare facts as they...

Encourage social skills including listening, speaking, and taking turns with a card game that challenges scholars to discuss topics and summarize in groups of four. 

Great literature discussions are a consequence of carefully crafted questions, interpretative questions that permit more than one response, and responses supported by specific evidence from the text. The discussion questions in a guide...

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, can seem strangely prophetic when compared to modern news events and politics. Readers of Orwell's dystopian classic sharpen their critical thinking skills by engaging in...

A tea party in Wonderland? An East Egg brunch with Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Nick? Breakfast with Miss Havisham, Lady Macbeth, and Abigail Williams? Or dinner with Andre, Hamlet, and Randle Patrick McMurphy? Class members select a favorite...

Translate the first speaking and listening standard for yourself and your ninth and tenth graders! Learners can focus on communicating in small groups with the two activities presented here. Both activities center around group creation...

You want your class to meet all of the Common Core standards, and here is one way to tackle the first speaking and listening standard. Given a theme to focus on from "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" by Leo Tolstoy, small groups come up...

What do you do when faced with a bully? Scholars answer this question when presented with a scenario regarding two learners and their spelling test grades. They take part in a grand conversation that leads to problem solving and...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

Crispin: the End of Time is the core text for this teaching guide, a valuable resource for those who use Avi's trilogy as whole-class reading, in book circles, or as independent reading.

Cover language registers so that your class members can adapt their speech when necessary. The two example activities are interactive and involve authentic interaction. Test your pupils' understanding of speech adaptation with one or...

Keep your class in conversation with others across the country or across the sea by writing letters to pen pals. The activity calls for students to be pan pals with pupils in Africa; however, the listed steps could be used for any...

Here's an awesome unit that uses The Cay as the anchor text. The 16-page packet is loaded with teaching ideas, activities, and suggested adjustments.

Before beginning The Winter's Tale groups read and discuss a scenario that parallels the plot of Shakespeare's play. They then brainstorm possible solutions to the problem.

Chart your way to an understanding of nanoscale. Using a Google map, learners estimate a radius around their location of 1,000 and 1,000,000 meters. Predicting what 1,000,000,000 meters would look like takes them off the charts!...

Students write and share short pieces about how their gender identities were affected through childhood messages about what it meant to be a boy or a girl. This activity can be used to introduce a discussion on gender issues.

This conversation activity uses 1-2 decks of playing cards to prompt discussion: each card represents a specific question. The site provides instructions and a suggested list of questions to match each card.