So many politicians, so many endorsements! Learn to differentiate between facts as well as the process of endorsements with an informative resource. Class members watch current endorsement videos, research candidates from three different...

At over 450 pages, John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Grapes of Wrath can be a challenging choice for full-class, book circle, or independent reading. The activities in a 10-page sample The Grapes of Wrath...

Go West, young man! Scholars use PBS video clips, slide shows, and interactive materials to create a picture of Manifest Destiny in the American West. Using a variety of primary and secondary sources, young historians learn about the...

Can beautiful words change the world? Literary scholars discover how to paint their visions of change using poetry in a series of three workshops. Each independent topic gives participants a chance to examine their feelings about...

Scholars warm-up their map skills with a discussion using location words to describe familiar places. An engaging video informs class members about latitude and longitude. Three leveled activities extend the learning experience for...

Scholars approach a problem trying to plan a meal for a class party. They learn about the restrictions and must decide what information they need to plan the meal. The first activity in a 13-part unit on Our Hungry Planet encourages...

Turtle, an 11-year-old girl in Turtle in Paradise, travels to Florida to live with her aunt. With the Great Depression all around her, Turtle safely hides within the shell she created around herself but soon opens up after the move....

Proving microscopic structures exist is a difficult task. Learn how scientists did just that in the mid-1800s as they set out to identify the cellular structures related to genetics. The online lesson explains the collection of work that...

Abortion has remained a highly controversial issue ever since the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Using the website, learners sift through all the information they need to participate in a debate about the topic. They learn about the...

Teacher's pet or enemy? Holling, a character in The Wednesday Wars, feels his teacher is out to get him. However, he has to remain on his best behavior to ensure his father's business does not suffer. How will he ever survive 7th grade?...

Ready to take your poetry writing to the next level? Use an independent lesson to iron out all those forced rhymes, wrenched rhymes, and near rhymes from first-draft poems.

An interesting resource addresses the role of youth in civic participation and community events. It also explains the role of the justice system in creating boundaries and how citizens play a part in the judicial process.  Pupils...

Sixth graders study the food web in a bay. In this food web lesson plan, 6th graders investigate the SAV- submerged aquatic vegetation of a bay including their predators, and how the organisms eat, have proper living space and water....

After reading chapter 14 of the story Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, scholars take part in a read-aloud of the poem If by Rudyard Kipling and compare it to the reading of Bud, Not Buddy. Learners then go deeper into the poem...

Begin the writing journey of an evidence-based essay detailing a rule to live by with various activities to familiarize learners with the topic and jump-start brainstorming. First, pupils take part in an in-depth review and discussion of...

Take the next step in the writing process with a lesson plan geared towards the completion of writing an evidence-based essay about a rule to live by, as Bud did in Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. Pupils collaborate with their...

Does Bud use his rules to survive or thrive? That is the driving question of a lesson plan following the reading of Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. In an argument essay prewriting activity, pupils use textual evidence to...

Applying a learned technique to a new type of problem is an important skill in mathematics. The activity asks scholars to apply their understanding to analyze dilations of different figures. They make conjectures and conclusions to...

How do you solve an equation like trigonometry? Learners apply their understanding of trigonometric ratios to find unknown angles in right triangles. They learn the meaning of arcsine, arccosine, and arctangent. Problems include...

Class members continue reading "How Bernard Madoff Did It" and annotate how the author refines his idea that the Madoff scandal grabbed the attention of a public fascinated with crime stories.

Part of being a strong researcher is knowing if you're headed in the right direction. Class members study their research frames formulated in the previous lessons of the unit and decide what parts of their inquiry paths need revision or...

Increase your sample and increase your accuracy! Scholars complete an activity that compares sample size to variability in results. Learners realize that the greater the sample size, the smaller the range in the distribution of sample...

Learn how to determine a probability distribution. In the ninth installment of a 21-part module, future mathematicians use theoretical probabilities to develop probability distributions for a random variable. They then use these...

Explore the graphs of functions and equations with a resource that teaches scholars how to graph functions as a set of input-output points. They learn how the graph of a function is the graph of its associated equation.