Readers learn to ask questions about text with an activity based on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. As they read, class members craft questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy and then find the answers themselves.

Hook your class into an exploration of and discussion about violence in video games with a cute animal clip and a video game trailer. After a quick discussion about how media can affect mood, class members read a related article and...

Give water the attention it deserves. Scholars watch Corporations Need to Pay More Attention to Water and respond to questions as part of their end of the unit assessment. They then complete the assessment by reading and responding to...

Looking for a resource that helps learners practice identifying fact and opinion? A four-page worksheet includes two informational text reading passages. Pupils read each passage and respond to four multiple choice and one...

Keeping readers on track while reading the 64 chapters in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield can be a challenge. If readers are punctual and diligent, and respond to the worksheet questions in order with determination, they can be the...

Answering questions is the best way to hone and revise your argument. Foster receptive writers with a workshop activity that promotes peer editing and argumentative writing skills. Given lists of both friendly and skeptical...

Why do authors write? Practice determining the author's purpose with a categorizing activity. Learners sort twelve short passages into three categories: persuade, inform, and entertain.

Few aspects of life make better fodder for a comedic play than politics. A study guide introduces George Bernard's Shaw comedy Arms and the Man. Along with summaries of each scene and brief biographies of the main characters, two lesson...

Class groups assume the identity of one of the primary human characters in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They create a body biography that identifies the most important traits of their character, translate these traits into...

Why did they say that? What did they mean? How did they feel? Using the six levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, challenge your young readers to answer the comprehension questions about chapters 41 and 42 of Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. Each...

Let's take a walk—a gallery walk. Scholars complete a mid-unit assessment relating to Unbroken by taking a gallery walk to view the various primary source mediums. They then use organizers to select three sources and respond to...

Class members identify bullying in contemporary texts and role play how they might change those scenes to examples of anti-bullying. They then re-define their initial definitions of bullying and discuss what they...

Scapegoating and "Othering" is the focus of a series of activities that ask groups to consider how these behaviors contribute to hatred and intolerance. Groups are given a scenario and discussion questions based on the situation. Whether...

Students respond and make predictions as they read an excerpt from The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  In this The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle lesson, students read aloud and respond to questions that require them to...

Should a criminal's punishment match the crime? An argumentative writing plan explores this question as class members investigate a variety of mixed-medium sources by experts in the field, form evidence-based claims, and support them...

Celebrate April's National Poetry Month or enrich a poetry unit with a wealth of language arts material. Class members develop an oral interpretation of a poem and/or develop a podcast interview with a poet. 

Students analyze the archetype of 'the fall' in Shakespeare's Macbeth. In this literary analysis lesson, students work in tiered learning groups to analyze the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Students use the book of Genesis as...

Help your future college graduates prepare for higher education with this series of lessons. High schoolers complete research projects about the colleges they would like to attend, and create PowerPoint presentations about their careers...

Before reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, take part in this thought-provoking, pre-reading activity that invites discussion about the story's theme using universal adages.

Wait, you mean researchers don't all use Wikipedia? Teach your class about intelligent research with a lesson about evaluating digital sources. The lesson starts with a quickwrite and includes vocabulary exercises and several...

"Ode to la Tortilla" and "Ode to Joy"? Sure! Use Gary Soto's poem to introduce learners to the ode format. After examining the descriptive words Soto uses, class members study a poster of Ludwig van Beethoven, suggest words that describe...

Some things are worth doing again. Scholars take a look to see which ideas Martin Luther King Jr. revisits and refines in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail." To help with the process, readers answer guided questions, look at word...

What is in a word? Scholars look closely at the words from a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt. They analyze how she supports a claim without debate and without rejecting others. Learners use jigsaw discussion, guided questions, and respond to...

Scholars examine the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and analyze the ideas in the preamble. Readers define new vocabulary words, listen to a Masterful Reading, answer questions in pairs, participate in a jigsaw discussion, and...