Do not let Julius Caesar be Greek to your pupils. Rather, make the play a dish fit for hungry minds. Encourage your class members to lend their ears to a series of rich discussion questions so that they can become masters of the play, as...

When would two paws up denote a blockbuster film in your classroom? Only when young writers create movie reviews from a pet's perspective in this imaginative expository writing practice. This engaging topic begins with a class discussion...

Role sheets clearly define expectations of all group members in this introduction to literature circles. By using a variety of picture books or short texts, readers can practice roles while the teacher circulates to each group observing...

Improve high schoolers' public speaking with an engaging activity. Class members select three personally relevant quotes from a list. They then write a short speech for each quote, explaining how the quotes are personally relevant....

In this conversions learning exercise, students use dimensional analysis to convert from one metric unit to another and from the English system of measurement to the metric system.

Lead your class through a writing exercise that explores personification. After listening to the teacher read a poem that personifies the sky, they go step by step through the writing their own personification poems.

Toss the ball! Help readers listen for the number of syllables in a word. They play an interactive ball game where they toss the ball to a peer and state a word using the number of syllables called out by the teacher. This is a great...

Support your scholars with these anticipatory questions to go along with The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The objective, rationale, and teacher instructions are clearly explained, followed by an anticipation guide for pages 81-93 and the...

Love this resource! Have your ever found it difficult to get your class to buy into the idea that handwriting is important? This resource provides a history of handwriting and a detailed discussion of the importance of it as a...

Designed to acquaint Purdue University freshmen with the concept of peer review, this presentation could be used with high school level learners as an introduction to peer reviewing. Slides model the process as well as helpful questions...

Young readers practice getting information from both the text and the illustrations found in books they are reading. They see that quite often, authors use pictures to help them get their writing process started. Youngsters are invited...

There's nothing like the prospect of writing a scary story to get your middle schoolers' writing juices flowing! In the lesson presented here, pupils listen to scary short stories read to them by the teacher. Then, a discussion ensues...

Elementary schoolers are charged with writing an article for their peers. A class discussion yields topics about which learners consider themselves to be an expert. The teacher models how to construct an article by using facts he or she...

At the beginning of the lesson plan, the class discusses the central idea of a poem. After that, the teacher reads a poem, embedded in the plan, to the class. In groups of two or three, learners create their own poem in response to the...

Elementary schoolers learn about young John F. Kennedy. After a teacher-led discussion about his high school years, pupils examine a photograph of Kennedy and four of his friends taken on the grounds of the Choate School in Connecticut....

Teach and taught, learn and learned! Work with your class on the past tense with some guided practice and a game. As a class, match the present tense verbs with their past tense counterparts. Learners then split off into pairs to play...

Most every teacher dreams of a ready-to-teach and print book study. Well, here it is! The Jungle Book novel resource includes 12 complete lessons studying poetry, author's craft, themes, characters, and more. Scholars role play,...

Help your class transition as the setting in the novel Esperanza Rising, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, moves from Mexico to California. Beginning with prior knowledge, and moving into jigsaw research groups, class members add to and create posters...

Third graders continue to practice the close reading skills of capturing the gist and reading again for important details in the sixth lesson in a larger unit. This is a great beginning-of-the-year unit for establishing visible thinking...

Supervise the final drafting of a well-organized paragraph by following the steps outlined in this plan. Using the included sample paragraph as a model, class members brainstorm criteria for quality work and then compose their paragraphs...

A story about feral girls raised by werewolves will have some interesting character development! Track how the girls and their teachers act, speak, and change with a lesson focused on Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by...

During the eighth lesson in a historical fiction unit, pupils practice thoughtfully transitioning their ideas sequentially. After the teacher models how to add these transitions using the Wheelwright draft created in a previous lesson,...

Encourage young writers to edit text based on conventions. After reviewing the conventions, fourth graders watch a teacher demonstrate how to revise a paragraph for correct spelling, capitalization, punctuation, or dialogue. Then, pairs...

Young writers examine dialogue conventions, including indentation, quotation marks, and expressing thoughts and feelings through a fictional text. By noticing where and when authors use dialogue, they decide how to incorporate dialogue...