Curated OER
Life Snapshots
Students create Inspiration webs using graphics or photographs that depict high and low points in their lives. This technology-based Language Arts lesson for the upper-elementary or middle-level classroom is excellent for improving...
Curated OER
Identify Main Idea in a Story
Help your kindergarteners identify the main idea in a story. Small groups work with the teacher to make predictions and draw conclusions. They are able to determine cause and effect relationships. The lesson is divided into several days,...
Breaking News English
More People to Stick to New Year's Resolutions
What makes a good New Year's resolution? Practice goal-setting and reading comprehension with a set of language arts activities. English learners work on cloze passages, synonym matches, interviewing exercises, and...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 1: Unit 1, Lesson 6
Get ready for the big reveal! Scholars work in the final instructional activity of the unit to discuss the revelation in Browning's poem My Last Duchess. Pupils discuss homework in pairs before working in small groups to identify text...
BBC
Lug and the Giant Stork - Capital Letters
Capital letters are the star of the show in a wonderful language arts lesson. After a teacher-led demonstration and discussion on capital letters, groups of pupils get together and work on the computer to fix the flashing letters that...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 13
Finish Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with an instructional activity focusing on the story's conclusion. After participating in literary analysis discussions with small groups, ninth graders complete a Quick...
BBC
Full Stops
This is an incredibly detailed and thorough plan. It is all about full stops - which is the British way of saying, "Periods." First-year learners practice the skill of knowing when to use a period, and understand what periods are meant...
Brigham Young University
Flipped: Problematic Situations
An activity based on the young adult novel Flipped, groups work to make the same difficult decision a character in the novel faces. Each group is given the same scenario about caring for a mentally disabled brother personally...
Curated OER
Aunt Isabel Tells a Good One...
Explore language arts by reading two similar stories in order to compare and contrast them in class. Young readers read two Aunt Isabel books, by Kate Duke, and discuss the main characters, plot, and setting. They complete a graphic...
Curated OER
Night Compare Contrast
Using a constructivist approach and a graphic organizer, small groups work together to begin a paper, comparing and contrasting the novella Night and the movie Life is Beautiful. Assuming that your learners have studied both of these...
Media Smarts
Hoax? Scholarly Research? Personal Opinion?
Divide your class into groups to study the validity of online sources. One group looks at the authority and accuracy of four listed websites, another group looks at advocacy and objectivity, and the third group looks at currency and...
EngageNY
Getting to Know Esperanza (Chapter 2: “Las Uvas/Grapes”)
Delve into Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan with close reading and evidence-based, text-dependent questions. Part of a unit series, this well-sequenced, Common Core designed instructional activity draws on material from the...
EngageNY
Grade 10 ELA Module 2: Unit 2, Lesson 3
Does trauma have a lasting effect on people's lives? Scholars dive into the topic as they read paragraphs 9–11 of "A Genetics of Justice" by Julia Alvarez, in which the author describes her family's return to the Dominican Republic....
EngageNY
Grade 12 ELA Extension Module: Understanding and Evaluating Argument
Scholars read, analyze, and evaluate argumentative writing. Discussion about arguments of mass incarceration evolves from The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Learners participate in group discussions and...
EngageNY
Grade 10 ELA Module 4: Unit 2, Lesson 10
Is it better to be dead than to "dwell in doubtful joy," as Lady Macbeth suggests in Act 3.2 of Shakespeare's Macbeth? Using the resource, scholars work in small groups to discuss how Lady Macbeth and Macbeth begin to unravel following...
EngageNY
Grade 10 ELA Module 4: Unit 3, Lesson 4
According to Machiavelli, a good ruler does whatever it takes. Using the resource, scholars work in small groups to analyze quotes from The Prince and then participate in a whole-class discussion. To finish, pupils select a phrase and...
EngageNY
Grade 10 ELA Module 4: Unit 3, Lesson 2
How do rhetorical devices advance an author's point of view? Scholars consider this question as they continue exploring Machiavelli's The Prince. They work in small groups, annotating the text for evidence of rhetoric before engaging in...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 1: Unit 2, Lesson 3
How does Shakespeare develop the character of Claudius in the first Act of Hamlet? Using a helpful resource, pupils complete a Quick Write to answer the question. Readers also work in small groups to discuss the characters of Claudius...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 4, Unit 1, Lesson 9
The supplemental text, "How Your Addiction to Fast Fashion Kills," allows learners to compare how other writers use evidence to support the argument that "rich countries benefit from harsh and abusive labor practices in poor countries."...
Scholastic
Defining Conflict Using "The Interlopers"
Feeling conflicted? Work out those issues with a language arts lesson on internal and external conflict. Using "The Interlopers" by Saki, class members identify the conflicts between the characters before writing their own short...
Utah Education Network (UEN)
Evaluating the Format of Informational Text
Make your learners aware of the advantages and disadvantages of using different media in presentations. This straightforward resource evaluates media formations such as print, digital text, and videos. Although the subject of ballet is...
Film English
Coca-Cola Ad
Have your class members consider how their lifestyle choices may differ from those of their grandparents when they were younger. After brainstorming and discussing differences in lifestyle, pupils watch a Coca-Cola advertisement that...
K5 Learning
A Restaurant
What can you eat at a restaurant? And how will you get it from your table? Learn about restaurant-specific words with a reading comprehension lesson about the people who work in restaurants, as well as the types of foods that various...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 4, Unit 1, Lesson 20
After comparing the working conditions of the enslaved people to those of the Indian indentured workers on the sugar plantations, class members examine the conditions and the actions of specific historical figures that Marc Aronson and...