It's easy to find information at the click of a mouse, but is it trustworthy? Pupils learn about the E.S.C.A.P.E. acronym for evaluating sources. Next, learners read a news story and evaluate its sources to determine credibility. Last,...

Introduce your class members to allegory and propaganda with a series of activities designed to accompany a study of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Readers examine the text as an allegory, consider the parallels to collective farms...

While this instructional activity includes several nice worksheets to identify and discuss the various limits on government (i.e. a constitution, the rule of law, separation of powers, consent of the governed, etc.), its main value lies...

The Women's Rights movement is the focus of an engaging and collaborative exercise, in which young historians use information found in textbooks, class notes, and the provided documents to craft a DBQ essay.

What is the connection between equivalent ratios? Class members first find the multiplication factor used to create equivalent ratios. Next, they take that information to determine whether ratios are equivalent. The second lesson on...

More than half the world's population eats rice as a daily staple ... imagine if that rice could prevent illness. Scientists genetically engineered rice to include vitamin A for just that purpose. However, room for debate still exists....

What, where, how? Readers hone their analysis skills as they determine the narrator's point of view in Eight Days. They complete a literary analysis chart and essay to describe what and where events take place. Individuals then discuss...

Box in the similarities and differences. The 19th lesson plan in a unit of 22 presents class members with multiple box plots to compare. Learners use their understanding of five-number summaries and box plots to find similarities and...

As the saying goes, art often imitates life ... and literature! A series of activities designed to accompany a visit to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art encourage writers to find inspiration in various landscapes. The lesson includes a...

You wouldn't give someone a 10-day timeout for eating a piece of candy. The US government, too, does not believe in unreasonable punishment. A variety of exercises exploring the clauses of the US Constitution prompts class members to...

Sama Maydani and Sarah Kuck's film, Even the Walls, that explores the benefits and drawbacks of gentrification in downtown Seattle, asks viewers to consider how houses, apartment buildings, and outdoor spaces can be designed to build a...

Using methods adopted by Public Policy Analysts (PPA) class groups define a social problem, gather evidence to document the existence of the problem, identify causes, evaluate existing policies designed to deal with the problem, develop...

Students summarize a piece of text. After reviewing the correct way to read and summarize, students work in groups to summarize a piece of text assigned by the instructor. They write a summary paragraph by creating a story map and the...

Learners summarize a piece of text. After reviewing the correct way to read and summarize, students work in groups to summarize a piece of text assigned by the instructor. They write a summary paragraph using the process outlined during...

Third graders practice summarizing passages while creating a fishbone map of important details in non-fiction text. They examine how to tell the difference between important and less important details by highlighting them in reading...

Third graders summarize a selected piece of nonfiction text. After reviewing the correct way to use information to summarize, 3rd graders read a nonfiction article about author A.A. Milne. They write a summary paragraph using the process...

Young scholars practice summarization by creating a story map. Students listen to a read aloud by the teacher, after which the class creates a storymap of the major events in the story. They read a passage from the Indian in the...

Students summarize a piece of nonfiction text. After reviewing the correct way to gather the important information needed to summarize, students independently read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph using the process...

Students determine how to form a simple topic sentence in order to summarize a reading passage to increase comprehension. They apply the strategy to reading a passage from a textbook by writing a topic sentence for paragraphs about the...

Students read the poem "To the Little Polish Boy Standing With His Arms Up." They discuss the poem. Students define the term "prejudice." They comapre and contrast the boy in the poster with the author of the poem, Peter Fischl. ...

To better understand how to compose a clear and well-organized paper, learners read short passages, write summaries, and make colored graphic organizers. This is a fully developed three-day lesson with suggested assessments.

Did the Declaration of Independence really intend to grant liberty for all? Get your class thinking about historical perspective with documents relaying the experiences of women, white men, and African-Americans during the Revolutionary...

Fifth graders write a speech.  In this history lesson, 5th graders define the word infamy and listen to a speech by FDR.  Students work in groups to summarize his speech and rewrite sections of the speech.

Compelling discussions are the result of open-ended, challenging questions. An introduction to Paideia discussions includes explicit directions about how to prepare readers and how to model the kinds of questions they should develop...