Curated OER
Eliminate Weak Verb-Adverb Combinations
Encourage your writers to use sob instead of cry loudly to trade in adverbs for strong verbs. Improve your middle and high schoolers' writing with this humorously written lesson plan which demonstrates how to remove excessive adverbs.
Curated OER
Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement Made Easy
Middle and high schoolers check their writing for pronoun-antecedent agreement. After identifying the pronouns in their writing, they then complete a table with the pronouns and corresponding antecedents, making revisions as necessary.
Curated OER
Revising Pronouns and Antecedents
Students choose better pronouns to use in their writing. In this pronouns in writing lesson, students identify pronouns in their writing, then replace second person pronouns to improve their writing.
Bright Hub Education
Use Pictures or Artwork to Spark Creative Writing
Art in one form can inspire art in another. Use images to inspire writing in your English class. The instructional activity described here is not detailed; however, the idea is strong. An engaging way to get class members interested in...
Bright Hub Education
How to Write an Essay Introduction
Clichéd and repetitive introductions got you down? Try this instructional activity on for size! Start off by instructing your class members on techniques for writing introductions and what types of introductions they should avoid....
Curated OER
Liberty Rhetoric
What is liberty rhetoric? Examine how people have used it in four different time periods and situations. High schoolers investigate original source documents and compare them with the Declaration of Independence to decide how liberty...
Curated OER
Secret Life of Bees Research
The Secret Life of Bees provides high schoolers an opportunity to connect the events in the novel to events in America’s history. After choosing a topic from a provided list, individuals research how the event affected the Civil Rights...
Global Oneness Project
Practicing Empathy
Spread the love with a heart-warming lesson plan about Jeffrey Wright, a physics teacher who helps his class cultivate empathy by himself being an empathetic role model. After watching a video about how Jeffrey works his magic, class...
Curated OER
What Do You Think? Analyzing Points of View About an Issue
"How might multiple perspectives of standardized testing impact me as a student?" is an example of an essential question that a researcher might use as a basis for this lesson on how to research and present a written stance on a...
Scholastic
Citing Text Evidence
Could you go without your cell phone for 48 hours? Pose this question to your class and then read the article provided here. Pupils mark the text and and complete a graphic organizer that requires the use of textual evidence.
Curated OER
Hypothetical Heights
High schoolers participate in an interdisciplinary lesson plan to discuss improvements that would make them want to return to a previously poor neighborhood. In this civics lesson plan, students work in a budget to make a plan...
University of Minnesota
Beautiful Brain: Brain Inspiration
"Neuroscientists consider Cajal as important to their discipline as Einstein is to physics." The first of four lessons has scholars view Santiago Ramon y Cajal's drawings of neurons. They reflect and respond to the art through writing...
Curated OER
How to Locate and Evaluate Information, Part I - Online Catalog
Using the online catalog, researchers locate and record on a citation template specific sources for their research paper. A library specialist models searching strategies while the teacher introduces the research paper process. Daily...
University of Arizona
Found News Poems
Combine informational text and creative writing with one fun activity! Middle and high schoolers write found poems based on newspaper headlines that they find. The resource includes a thorough lesson plan and many links to articles that...
Digital Forsyth
Restoration Project
In need of a neat idea that incorporates technology skills, art, and history? Young art historians will each select an old photograph from a local archive to digitally restore. The primary focus is to add color, clarity, and remake the...
Channel Islands Film
Dark Water: Lesson Plan 1 - Grades 3-4
As part of their study of the history of the Channel Islands, class members craft an informational article to post on a bulletin board that features the Chumash ancestral tradition of tomol paddling.
Curated OER
My Personal Wellness
Merge technology and wellness. Class members complete inquiry-based research on a personal wellness issue and create an annotated bibliography, uploading their completed work to their personal wellness websites. Prior to beginning, your...
Curated OER
Masking Tape Masterpieces
Students create non-objective art based on the design elements of line, color, balance and movement using tape. This simple lesson plan encourages students to create patterns by overlapping and defining lines on a canvas panel. One of...
University of Colorado
Looking Inside Planets
Researchers use scientific data to understand what is inside each of the planets. The first in a series of six, this lesson builds off of that concept by having pupils use a data table to create their own scale models of the interiors of...
Curated OER
Topical Discussions
Engaging in topical discussions can be a great way to teach kids how to build strong arguments and support their opinions with concrete evidence. High schoolers choose a controversial topic, build an argument for or against that topic,...
Curated OER
The Progressive Era in Illinois
High schoolers collect photographs on the Progressive Era in Illinois, then write three newspaper articles, using one photo per article. The article will highlight an event in Illinois during the Progressive Era. The newspaper must also...
Curated OER
Telling Our Own Stories
Explore online profiles and social media with your middle and high school classes. Use blogs to inspire your class to craft a well-written, thoughtful response to a prompt you give. A few example prompts are given.
Curated OER
36 Public Policy Questions to Energize Your Government/History Classroom Debates
Need topics that are sure to engage your debaters? This list of public policy questions includes such topics as school mascots, regulation of major league baseball, physician-assisted suicide, and violence in video games. A great...
Curated OER
A Year in Review: The Memoir
If you are planning a unit on memoir and autobiographical narrative, you should consider this resource. Using Internet research skills, pupils review works by James Frey and Henry David Thoreau. In response to these works, learners...