Scholars use a map of Asia to help them better understand the article "The Vietnam Wars," focusing on word meaning in the title and subtitle. Learners then use guided notes while reading the article and discuss their ideas with partners.

Scholars think about what message Laura Hillenbrand tries to convey to readers in Unbroken. They begin by sharing their thoughts as thematic statements. After sharing, learners work on explaining their ideas in an Unbroken Thematic...

Scholars work together to compile a list of things good writers do to perfect their craft and write the ideas on a whiteboard. They then discuss the differences between passive and active sentences and use their knowledge to identify...

Check those sources carefully. Scholars learn to analyze and critique primary sources with the work they completed in the previous activity. Learners compare and contrast sources that agree and disagree about Japanese-American internment...

You wrote it, now what? Learners take their writing to the next level when they perform it for classmates. They then engage in a self-reflection and assessment of their work to determine how well they hit targets, such as identifying...

It's story time! Scholars take a look through the eyes of a storyteller as the teacher reads aloud The People Could Fly. They also listen as the story is played on video. Learners then answer questions about the reader's facial...

What to do with all that feedback? Scholars use colored writing instruments to circle any feedback that relates to the first two rows of the grading rubric. After working on revisions for their papers, learners view the performance task...

What's it like to study snakes, reptiles, and turtles in their natural habitats? Serving as the mid-unit assessment, pupils read an interview with a rainforest scientist. Next, they analyze the text and answer text-dependent questions.

Looking for a good presentation which teaches how to write higher-level sentences? Then, this one is for you! Learners are shown how to expand their sentences by using connectives, adding clauses, and how to appropriately use commas to...

How can you read a character's tone? What about a narrator's tone? Analyze Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with a lesson plan that focuses on how word choice can change tone and how tone can affect the...

Hearken! and observe how well a literary analysis unit can help ninth graders read closely and connect text structure to a central idea. Focusing on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," learners take notes and track the development...

Listen to the low, stifled sound that arises from the souls of your ninth graders when overcharged with awe. Inspire them with a captivating instructional activity about "The Tell-Tale Heart." Learners analyze how Poe uses the story...

To underscore the importance of practicing good listening skills class members engage in a series of activities that model poor listening skills. In pairs and then as a whole group, class members enact different, more positive techniques...

Explore the impact of wildfires with a reading passage about ecosystems. Pupils read the passage and respond to five questions related to the content of the text.

Looking for materials to accompany your study of Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes? Look no further! Included here is everything you need to go alongside your unit: worksheets, graphic organizers, writing assignments, an assessment,...

Your plane has crashed in the Sahara desert. What do you do? Explore the possibilities with a role-playing activity based on Antoine de Saint Éxupery's The Little Prince. In groups, kids decide whether they would walk to find help...

Get things cooking with the first lesson in this series on the science of food. Working in small groups, young scientists make and record observations about different mystery foods. These descriptions are then shared with the class and...

Create a buzz in your class with this collection of learning activities for the book Hi! Fly Guy. Including a list of comprehension questions, a sequence of events activity, a summary writing assignment, and a vocabulary list, this...

A solid, straightforward book report form is an excellent addition to your literature unit. Class members note the main characters, point of view, plot elements, and other important details from a story, adding their favorite part...

Get your class members thinking about a reading passage's topic, main idea, supporting details, and theme with this interactive presentation that asks scholars to define, locate, and review each term.

With the help of a prewriting activity, scholars reserach a topic and compose an expository essay to show what they know about a topic of their choice. 

There is a reason why an Oscar is given each year for the Best Adaptation Screenplay. Adaptations are the focus of an exercise that asks class members to compare a work of literature with a least one adaptation of the work into a...

We should all do more exercising, but should the judicial branch as well? High schoolers develop their understanding of what powers the judicial branch carries because of the US Constitution, as well as where their limits lie in the...

If you think you can do better, feel free to give it a try. Pupils learn about the work on Temple Grandin and consider ways to improve animal handling facilities. They work in groups to build models to showcase their ideas.