Curated OER
Alicia Keys, Songs in A Minor
Need a musical activity for your drama or performing arts class? VH1 has put together a really neat activity, in which learners use biographical information about Alicia Keys to write and perform a one-act musical related to her life....
Curated OER
Stop! Explore Go!
Students examine a three-step process for making decisions and how their peers can influence them in different ways. They role-play different roles when making decisions and other students reflect on how they feel about the activity.
Scholastic
The Class Election from the Black Lagoon Storia Teaching Guide
One of my favorite things about this resource is that they use a standardized lexile to help you determine who should be reading what book. I also love this great teacher's guide for the book, The Class Election from the Black...
Curated OER
Writing: Lesson 3
Eighth graders are read the material in the boldface print inside the boxes. They study several key elements of composition and examine sentence structure using the English Language Arts Writer's Checklist. They then critique another...
Curated OER
"As You Like It" by William Shakespeare
Jacque's soliloquy from Act II, scene ii of As You Like It sets the stage for a close reading exercise that models how to approach difficult, dense text and enables readers to practice reading comprehension and analysis...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Biography and Autobiography
Young scholars examine autobiographies and biographies through a series of reading and writing exercises. By writing journals during this semester-long course, they improve writing skills and discover their own voice. Among other...
Curated OER
It's All Greek to Me
Introduce your class to the Greek alphabet and language. Examine how the Greek language influenced the English language. Study the history, timeline of achievements, and the role oral history played in Greece.
Curated OER
Vocabulary Development
Learners utilize various vocabulary strategies. They use vocabulary logs to record strategies they have been taught, such as the Frayer Model (definition, picture, examples, non-examples), writing their own definitions, and using...
Curated OER
Classifying Information About a Main Idea
Elementary learners explore language arts by completing a text identification activity. They discuss the importance of a main idea in a story or paper and how to present it properly. Then they practice identifying the main idea in sample...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Picture Poetry
What a fun idea! The class discusses, and then writes free-verse poems using sensory detail. They get into small collaborative writing teams to compose their poems. Next, they pantomime the actions from the poem while their teammates...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
What’s My Vocabulary Word?
The elements of dance can be used to communicate thoughts and, in this case, words. In small groups, the class first creates a set of movements to show a single word. Then, they extend their movements to show a three-word phrase....
Curated OER
Let's Put You in a Louisiana University
Considering a college search project? After picking a possible career choice, and determining if that career needs a technical college or university education, individuals examine a wide variety of sources and select three schools...
Curated OER
Digging Deep for Figurative Language (Hyperbole)
What are hyperboles? Examine the attributes of hyperboles with your high school classes. Pupils read selected poems and prose selections that feature hyperboles and discuss their functions in each work of literature. Specific poems and...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Finding the Main Idea
You can mix almost any subject with an arts curriculum. Find out how to use drama to find the main idea of a literary text. You'll read a story, and then learners will make tableaus showing what happened, or what they think will happen...
Curated OER
How a Writer Conveys Descriptions With a Wallop Lesson 3 for Running (From River Town)
Students examine strategies an author uses to provide qualitative and quantitative aspects of life in China. They apply the strategies to their own writing.
Dream of a Nation
Big6 Research Project
Do research projects at your school look like a class of eighth graders staring at a blank screen? Use the Big 6 research method to guide middle schoolers through the process of finding a topic, searching for and evaluating sources,...
EngageNY
Poetic Tools in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Scholars listen to a reading and answer probing questions about If We Must Die by Claude McKay. Readers annotate their personal copies of the poem as they discuss its figurative language, vocabulary, and meaning. They then transfer...
Curated OER
English Lesson Plans for Grade 8
Demonstrate how to engage in a polite and professional conversation with this banking and interfacing lesson. Focusing on explanatory and informaitonal texts, middle schoolers write sentences using banking and finance terminologies....
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Changing Scapes
Culture and art are two things that change with time and context. Learners compare and contrast two landscape prints from different time periods. They work through art terminology to help them describe what they see in each piece. The...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment Part 2: Beginning the Writer’s Workshop
Writers learn about using sensory details as they revise bland sentences with more vivid language. Next, they begin writing the first drafts of their children's books, completing storyboards to effectively plan their writing.
EngageNY
Introducing Poetry
A silent reading session permits class members to meet individually with their teacher to discuss their text. Learners then discuss and express their observations about two poetry quotes, recording thoughts about craftsmanship, forms of...
EngageNY
How to Read a Poem: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
Learners listen as a teacher models how to read a poem using The Negro Speaks of
Rivers. They use the How to Read a Poem anchor chart to help guide their thought process on how a poem requires different reading than other text. While...
EngageNY
Meeting the Main Character: Launching The Lightning Thief (Chapter 1)
Three is company! Scholars work in groups of three to discuss quotes from the first pages of The Lightning Thief. Each group records their thinking on the paper of the quotes before talking about Percy's character using the Making...
EngageNY
Building Context for the Narrative: The Abolition Movement
That's history. Scholars work together to review the text Abolition and its accompanying text-dependent questions. They then determine what information to add to the Historical Context anchor chart. For homework, individuals think...