Curated OER
Lord of the Flies Anticipation Guide and Activities
“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?” Ah, the central question of Lord of the Flies. As part of their study of William Golding's riveting novel, readers complete an anticipation guide and respond to a series of survey...
Curated OER
Build an Outdoor Compost Heap
Students study how to create a compost heap. In this composting lesson, students create a compost heap. Students write an essay describing the process.
Cornell University
Plant Cell Crime Scene
Use science to solve the mystery of the Poplar murder. Pupils use forensic botany to determine if a suspect could be the killer. By analyzing images from a Transmission Electron Microscope, learners determine if the material found on the...
EngageNY
Continued Close Reading of Waiting for the Biblioburro: Comparing and Contrasting the Children in Colombia, Appalachia, Chad, and Afghanistan
Focus on similarities and differences with a jigsaw activity that requires pupils to compare Waiting for the Biblioburro to other texts they have read. To prepare, class members first respond to text-dependent questions, moving on to...
Classroom Adventures Program
Creating Characters
Examine character in depth. Over the course of these six lessons, learners explore their own character traits, determine the traits of characters in the books they read, practice comparing and contrasting, and collaborate in small...
EngageNY
Fraction Multiplication and the Products of Decimals
Class members come up with a hypothesis on the number of decimal digits in the product of two decimals. Learners work in groups to complete several decimal multiplication problems. The results help groups develop a conjecture on the...
Curated OER
American Federal Style
Explore American Federal design as it pertains to furniture, architecture, and influences on modern style. By the end of this lesson, learners should be able to recognize Federal design, its place in history, and how it has influenced...
Curated OER
With Your Own Two Hands: Are You Changing the World or "Waiting for the World to Change"?
Can your pupils change the world? Explore this question with Ben Harper's song "With My Own Two Hands" and John Mayer's "Waiting for the World to Change." After listening to the songs, they discuss the tools at their disposal for...
EngageNY
Qualities of a Strong Literary Analysis Essay
Read like a writer. Scholars read a model literary analysis in preparation for a similar writing assignment before annotating each paragraph for the gist. Next, pupils devise a list of qualities of a strong literary analysis essay.
Curriculum Corner
7th Grade ELA "I Can" Statement Posters
Help your seventh graders relate the ELA Common Core standards to their own learning with these "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been translated into a statement that pupils can understand and placed on its own page for...
Mathematics Vision Project
Module 6: Congruence, Construction, and Proof
Trace the links between a variety of math concepts in this far-reaching unit. Ideas that seem very different on the outset (like the distance formula and rigid transformations) come together in very natural and logical ways. This...
Channel Islands Film
Telling Your Own Story
After watching and discussing a video on the Voyage of Cabrillo, individuals craft their own origin story and design and build an artifact they feel best represents their history.
Cornell University
Catapults
Ready, aim, fire! Launch to a new level of understanding as scholars build and test their own catapults. Learners explore lever design and how adjusting the fulcrum changes the outcome.
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
A Mini lesson on Semicolons
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...
Curriculum Corner
“I Can” Common Core! 3rd Grade Reading
Third grade readers are given clear learning goals with this Common Core checklist. By turning each reading standard into an I can statement, children can focus on mastering the required grade level skills.
San Francisco Symphony
American Civil War Songs
Learners will compare and contrast two songs from the Civil War era, one from the North and one from the South. They'll write a comparative essay on their songs, and then compare their essays and songs with others in their small groups....
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.4
Study allusions with a research and presentation project. Pupils are assigned a specific allusion, the phoenix for example. They research the origins, compose a summary, explain the concept, and explore this allusion within various...
Curated OER
Earthquakes and Volcanoes
Even though volcanoes look alike, they can be very different based on the types of lava that erupts from their surface. Learn about strata volcanoes, shield volcanoes, and the varying viscosity of lava with an engaging hands-on...
Curated OER
Deconstructing Disney
Tenth graders analyze animated Disney movies. They demonstrate their awareness of how the artful use of language can affect and influence others. They evaluate how both genders and cultures are portrayed in mass media.
EngageNY
Launching the Performance Task: The1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
Picture that! Pupils view photographs of the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, discussing what they know and wonder about each image. Then, scholars watch a short video about the historic event and complete a KWL...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit 3 Assessment: On-Demand Note-Taking about Howler Monkeys
Get the facts straight. Scholars complete their mid-unit assessment by reading a text, watching a video, and observing a picture about howler monkeys. They take notes about the facts they discover to use in future lessons.
Utah Education Network (UEN)
8th Grade Poetry: Sonnet Poem
The third lesson of five in an eighth-grade poetry unit has young scholars comparing Shakespearean sonnets with Petrarchan sonnets. To begin, they examine the different structures of the two forms and their different rhyme schemes. After...
Utah Education Network (UEN)
7th Grade Poetry: Sonnet Poem
Two sonnets provide seventh graders with examples of Shakespearean sonnets. After discussing the story of the poems and analyzing their rhyme scheme and rhythm, young poets craft a Shakespearian sonnet and share their work with two...
National Endowment for the Humanities
La Familia
Young scholars identify at least one country where the Spanish language is spoken, describe similarities and differences between Spanish, Mexican, and Puerto Rican families, and practice speaking the Spanish words for several family...