Curated OER
Symbols and the Choices we Make
Upper elementary and middle schoolers recognize symbols that influence the choices that we make consciously or unconsciously in everyday life. They look at the symbols and choices that others make. They identify and apply knowledge of...
Curated OER
Using Aphorisms to Help Dealing with People
Here's a formal plan for what many effective teachers already do: Provide a week's worth of aphorisms and have learners choose one to write about in their journals each day. They reflect on the meaning of each aphorism and project how it...
Curated OER
Build Mastery: Purpose for Reading
Do you agree? Set up three stations in your room for this reading comprehension activity: I agree, I disagree, and I'm not sure. Learners listen to statements and walk to the sign that best describes their response. Model...
Channel Islands Film
Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island: Lesson Plan 3
Should researchers be able to excavate, examine, and remove Native American artifacts from historic sites? Should companies be permitted to build on sacred Native American land? After watching West of the West's documentary, The Lone...
Curated OER
Studying History through Journal Keeping
Young scholars read and write journals to relate to events of the past, in this case the Oregon Trail travels. They watch a video and read journal accounts dealing with the trip to the West as they attempt to keep a journal of what the...
Curated OER
Summarization Superstars
How do you read when you know you're going to be summarizing a text? Summarize a nonfiction text with your upper elementary schoolers. Your pupils independently read a nonfiction article and write a summary paragraph using the six-step...
Curated OER
The Purpose and Power of Persuasion
Examine the power of persuasion and have learners consider how it influences events in their own lives. After reading and analyzing informational texts to understand the author's purpose, class members take a written test and craft a...
Curated OER
Prewriting
As a class, 7th graders observe examples of brainstorming and then complete brainstorming worksheets themselves. They compose and describe planning strategies. Prior to writing an essay, they identify the purpose and the audience.
Curated OER
Self Biography
Get to know your students with this project. Each individual writes an autobiography that is at least seven pages long with major facts, visual facts, focal stories, and chronology. The instructional activity includes a point breakdown...
Curated OER
Sense of Hearing
Create a graphic organizer to review parts and systems of the body, then present a new topic. Special education students grades 3-5 learn about the sense of hearing. They draw parts of the ear, sign a song, read Perk Up Your Ears, and...
Pearson
Practice Test English Language Arts: Grade 7
Practice makes perfect. A practice test designed for the ELA MCAS Assessment gives seventh grade learners the opportunity to answer reading comprehension questions and respond to essay prompts. Questions involve general fiction and...
Curated OER
Can You Get the Signal?
What is a signal word? Recognizing these words is an important step in both reading and writing formal text. Review a list of signal words (provided and organized into specific categories), and then have your class play a game to...
Curated OER
Anticipation Guides Improve Reading Comprehension
Beginning with anticipation guide strategies is a powerful method for improving reading comprehension. First, list initial ideas for a topic the class will be reading about. These ideas are formulated into statements, some of which are...
Curated OER
Evaluating Accuracy and Adequacy
Evaluate non-fiction works with your English class. While practicing a variety of strategies detailed in the plan, readers compare and contrast the information in three non-fiction passages about the same topic. They then discuss the...
Curated OER
Finding Useful Sources
In this finding useful sources worksheet, students read about how to approach writing topics for their research. Students are given topic titles and they come up with new titles and a new direction for the research topics given.
Curated OER
How To Be Persuasive in an Entertainment Review
Students write persuasively through description and word choice while reviewing a topic of interest to them.
Curated OER
Informative Speech with Research
Students complete an informative research activity. In this informative speech lesson, students select a topic to research and write an informative speech for the topic. Students rehearse and give their speech in class.
Curated OER
The Middle Ages Gazette
Seventh graders research and obtain information about topics from the Middle Ages and write news reports that be compiled into a Gazette or newsletter. The reports can be on feudalism, castles, jousts and tournaments and/or the Crusades.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Lesson 3: Religion and the Fight for American Independence
Pupils explore the role religion played in the American Revolutionary War. Using primary documents and writing exercises, students understand how religion was used in support of the war efforts and how specific religious groups responded...
Curated OER
General to Specific
Students revise a recent draft of writing to make the content more specific. They trace their hands on a large sheet of paper. Students, in the palms of their traced hand print, write in the general topic of the writing draft. On the...
Curated OER
Editorial Writing: What's On Your Mind
Young scholars write an editorial column for a newspaper. For this journalism lesson plan, students discuss and analyze editorials in print and broadcast media. Young scholars will compare the differences in these two formats...
Curated OER
Similes and Metaphors Information
In this similes and metaphors worksheet, students write a descriptive practice paragraph in which they describe a place, idea, person, event, or concept without telling what the subject of the paragraph is. Students then pair up to...
Curated OER
Sample Lesson on Taking Notes
Have your middle schoolers define the terms outline, summary, paraphrase, plagiarism, citation, reference, and bibliography. They identify the main ideas, topic sentence, supporting ideas in technical writing and create note cards using...
Curated OER
How to Locate and Evaluate Information, Part III - Internet Sites
This is the third in a series of lessons scaffolding the research paper. It purports to teach researchers how to evaluate internet sites, but the lack of links, specific criteria, or site evaluation rubrics would require additional...