Curated OER
An Analysis of Jim Crow Laws and their Effects on Race Relations
First graders analyze the role of the Jim Crow laws on race relations. As a class, they are segregated based on the color shirt they have or some other simple criteria and wear either a square or circle sticker representing the majority...
Curated OER
Breaking the Chains: Rising Out of Circumstances
Study history through photographs. In this visual arts and history lesson, students learn to analyze photographs to discover details about life during the Civil War era. Students write journal entries as if they are the African-American...
Curated OER
Becoming a "Gringo" Immigrants, Language Learning and Acculturation
High schoolers examine the experience by immigrants coming to America who are Spanish-speaking. As a class, they define "Gringo" and read poems whose authors first language is Spanish. In groups, they participate in different sections...
Curated OER
Cyberbullying: Effects on Teens Across the Nation (Segment 3)
Free speech, privacy, and cyberbullying are the focus of a series of activities that prompt class members to engage in discussions about these interrelated topics. They view a segment from PBS’s series on bullying, read...
Curated OER
Newspapers in the Digital Age
Is journalism more or less reliable with the influx of Internet sources? Learners investigate the issues of freedom of speech, journalistic ethics, and social responsibility in the age of Twitter and Facebook. After examining the...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension: Test-taking version
In this reading comprehension worksheet, students explore and analyze test taking techniques, read a short story and then answer eight comprehension questions.
Curated OER
Plagiarism: Avoiding Accidental Internet Plagiarism
Demonstrate how to cite information from Internet sources without plagiarizing. If your class is working on an Internet research paper, and you have observed learners cutting and pasting directly from the Internet, the activities and...
Curated OER
Synonyms and Antonyms
Mix up your writing lessons by having kids look at recent newspaper articles instead of their own work. They work in pairs and rewrite sports news articles using synonyms and antonyms for a set number of words. Then they share their work...
Curated OER
Composition in Journals
Carlos Fuentes’s The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait and Jaspre Bark’s Journal of Inventions: Leondardo da Vince serve as models for an assignment that asks class members to create a personal journal they will use...
Curated OER
Writing Fables
Young scholars write their own fables. In this writing fables lesson, students use handheld computers to write a fable. The class designs a spreadsheet to organize common elements of fables. Young scholars also edit each others' work.
Curated OER
Creating Interesting Characters
What makes a story interesting? Complex characters! As part of a series of worksheets that prepares middle schoolers to write their own novel, the exercises included explain the role of the protagonist, the antagonist, and the supporting...
Curated OER
Interaction as Analysis: Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is a thing with feathers” is the focus of a series of activities that model for learners how close reading can lead to understanding. The whole class plays with the metaphor, groups talk about the author’s...
My Access
“Banning Books” Lesson Plan
To Kill a Mockingbird, Hunger Games, Brave New World. Welcome to Banned Books Week. As part of a study of censorship and book banning, class members investigate censorship, the purposes of censorship, and First Amendment rights,...
Teaching Channel
Storyboard Lesson Plan
Good books are accessible through a variety of literary lenses. To consider how the same story can be seen in different lights, groups develop a storyboard for a movie teaser that would focus on one of six concepts found in Suzanne...
Curated OER
Are You Listening?
To underscore the importance of practicing good listening skills class members engage in a series of activities that model poor listening skills. In pairs and then as a whole group, class members enact different, more positive techniques...
Institute for Humane Education
I've Been Branded!
How many pairs of Nikes® or Apple® products are in the average American home? What makes someone buy one particular type of laundry detergent over another? Scholars grapple with these questions as they develop a list of brands they use...
Curated OER
Say Hi to Haibun Fun
Learners examine the Japanese writing form of Haibun. They identify the elements of Japanese prose and poetry, analyze a haibun for writing devices, complete a graphic organizer, and compose an original haibun as a form of journal keeping.
Curated OER
Put the Title of the Lesson Here
Eighth graders write a Compare and Contrast essay comparing the lives of similarly aged students at different Latitudes. They share their essays with epals, via e-mail. They may include digital photographs in their correspondence as well.
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...
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...
Curated OER
The Gift of Gatsby
A reading of “Gatsby’s Green Light Beckons a New Set of Strivers,” a New York Times article by Sara Rimer, triggers a discussion of the American Dream and what it means to strive for something. Following the discussion, class members...
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of Beowulf
Beowulf, the Old English epic hero, comes alive again in the activities found in a teacher's guide designed to accompany a reading of the classic poem.
Institute for Humane Education
Not So Fair and Balanced: Analyzing Bias in the Media
Life is not always fair. Who's heard that before? This same concept moves to a larger scale using prejudice and bias. Pupils discuss where prejudice attitudes derive and how they develop throughout life. Reading comprehension...
Curated OER
Masterpieces and the Mass-Produced
Young scholars examine "masterpieces" and mass-produced objects as they discuss humankind's inventiveness and creativity. They also analyze the role of problem solving in the creation of masterpieces and mass-produced items.