Curated OER
Illuminating Language in Love's Labor's Lost
Learners reflect on literature using multiple intelligences. For this literature analysis lesson, students make creative visual representations of vocabulary terms from a speech in the play. They work in small groups to...
Curated OER
Family Foodways
Discover, document and share the knowledge of family food and ways special occasions are treated. Your class will explore the context in which food traditions are created and adapted in their families and communities. Each student also...
Indiana University
World Literature: "One Evening in the Rainy Season" Shi Zhecun
Did you know that modern Chinese literature “grew from the psychoanalytical theory of Sigmund Freud”? Designed for a world literature class, seniors are introduced to “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” Shi Zhecun’s stream of...
Curated OER
Christmas Candy
Here is a tasty topic for a instructional activity: Christmas candy! Third and fourth graders research classic Christmas candies, then create their very own! They write a descriptive paragraph about their candy, then use KidPix to create...
Curated OER
Making a Pinhole Camera
Students participate in a number of activities in order to study the history of photography and to examine the workings of a pinhole camera.
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...
BBC
The Patchworker - Sentences Making Sense
An entertaining and educationally sound lesson on sentence structure is here for you. Young readers play an online game called "The Patchwork Game" where they must patch together a series of words in order to create a complete sentence....
Curated OER
Intro to Pronouns
Sixth graders are able to identify personal pronouns and understand their function. They are able to use personal pronouns correctly as subjects and objects in sentences. Then they look at sentences given by the teacher, and they list...
State University of New York
Going Back in Time Using “George Washington’s Socks”
After reading Elvira Woodruff's George Washington's Socks, young readers and writers embark upon writing their own historically based story, with a focus on developing ideas and details throughout the piece. In small groups, class...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to John Updike
Expand your pupils' understanding of the short story genre with a study of John Updike and his story "A&P." This lesson, the fourth in a series of fourteen, invites learners to examine literary terms and read and discuss the story....
Curated OER
Musical Mystery Words
Students study the letter names for the treble clef and create words using the letters that represent the lines and spaces on the staff.
Curated OER
Minorities in Mainstream American Society
So many people fought for Civil Rights in the United States. Read about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and discuss what the act guarantees. Then pass out a slew of magazines and encourage them to observe how often minorities appear in...
Curated OER
Knowing Write from Wrong
Explore how the informality of electronic correspondence has affected communications in the workplace. Writers develop pages for a basic writing guide that contains rules and examples to help correct common writing errors. A great way to...
Curated OER
Solid Foundation
Young community members explore philanthropic foundations. They discuss the work of community foundations, and then they listen to a guest speaker describe the vision and activities of a local foundation. Is there a way they can join the...
Curated OER
Alphabet Photo Book
Students use iPhoto to create a class alphabet book. After the teacher reads several alphabet books to the class, students brainstorm the names of objects that start with each letter of the alphabet.
Curated OER
M.C. Bard: Hip-Hop and Shakespeare
What is poetry? Does hip-hop qualify as poetry? Do Shakespeare's monologues qualify as poetry? Class members grapple with these questions as they examine the poetic elements and themes presented in different texts. Groups of four study...
Curated OER
Dracula: Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)
“There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night.” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest,” which may or may not have been the first chapter of the original Dracula manuscript, is the focus of a Directed Reading Thinking Activity...
Curated OER
See It, Say It, Move It, Do It!
Learn two new letters a week with this activity! After learning the two target letters, the class will make an alphabet video "performing" each letter. The letter's name, sound, and a motion associated with it will be included in the...
Curated OER
Making the Old New Again
How does a new version of a Shakespearean play change in the adaptation process? Use this New York Times' Learning Network lesson to consider texts that have been produced in different media. Middle schoolers examine the latest...
Curated OER
Food, Glorious Food?
How are the reactions between American and European consumers different when it comes to genetically modified foods? Use the New York Times article "Consumers in Europe Resist Gene-Altered Foods" to inform your middle schoolers...
Curated OER
Prisoner in One's Own Home
Examine the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. After reading an article from the New York Times and exploring the author's word choice, young readers find the central idea in the text and work on researching...
Curated OER
Create a Public Opinion Survey: The Middle East in the News
Though the discrete content here is a pair of New York Times articles about a 1998 military strike on Iraq and the coincident impeachment by the House of Representatives of then-President Clinton, this detailed plan for creating,...
Curated OER
Fanatically Grammatically Correct
Research guidelines for correct usage, then explore how creative writers employ punctuation as an essential tool in their craft. Secondary classes create board games to teach elementary school students how to properly punctuate. From the...