EngageNY
Inferring About Characters Based on How They Respond to Challenges (Chapter 4: "Los Higos/Figs")
How do you know what a character's personality is like if an author doesn't tell you? With a focus on character development in Esperanza Rising, pupils complete a jigsaw activity to analyze the actions of Mama, Abuelita, and Miguel. Once...
Illustrative Mathematics
How Many Marbles?
Don't lose your marbles! This simple story problem helps make teaching division with fractions much easier. Work on this problem along with the lesson titled, How Many Servings of Oatmeal? to highlight the difference between...
Odyssey of the Mind
Odyssey of the Mind Curriculum Activity: Sentence Structure
Statements can be taken out of context and interpreted or used to support a very different view than the one originally intended. Young journalists start thinking about leading questions, sentence structure, context, and how they all...
Curated OER
In Pursuit of the American Dream
Students compare and contrast assimilation and acculturation. They explain the idea of "The Melting Pot" as it relates to what it means to be American. They write an 8 page response paper on a selected author.
American Statistical Association
Step into Statastics
Class members study the size of classmates' feet and perform a statistical analysis of their data. They solve for central tendencies, quartiles, and spread for the entire group as well as subgroups. They then write a conclusion based on...
Curated OER
The Grimm Truth—Comparing & Contrasting Children’s Stories and Fairy Tales in Cross-Cultural Texts at Different Points in Time
High schoolers explore world literature through completing several varied exercises. For this compare and contrast lesson students compare and contrast stories and how time and culture impacts the stories.
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to the Short Story
How should pupils read short stories? Set them up for this unit with an introductory instructional activity that goes over the main characteristics of a short story and starts learners off reading their first short story of the unit. In...
Curated OER
Unsent Letter: Characterization in Briar Rose
After completing Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose, class members assume the voice of Gemma and craft a personal letter to her granddaughter telling Becca how she feels about Becca’s actions and the discoveries at Chelmno. Complete directions for...
Curated OER
What's in the Time Capsule? A Technology-Connected Lesson Plan
Twelfth graders use computers and the Internet to research a specified area, word processors to prepare an essay, a digital camera, a video camera gather visuals, and a scanner to add visuals to a PowerPoint presentation as they discover...
Concordia College Archives
History and Musical Aesthetics
What are the musical elements that characterize a school's fight song or its alma mater? Class members listen to examples of fight songs and alma maters from various schools, play a listening game, and then create a list of the...
Statistics Education Web
What Does the Normal Distribution Sound Like?
Groups collect data describing the number of times a bag of microwave popcorn pops at given intervals. Participants discover that the data fits a normal curve and answer questions based on the distribution of this data.
Curated OER
My Antonia: Magic Squares (Vocabulary Strategy)
Help your pupils discover the power of context clues by teaching the this vocabulary strategy. Designed to go with words from Willa Cather's My Antonia, this exercise focuses on having individuals use their own words to define new...
Curated OER
Shizuko’s Daughter: Before, During, After Lesson Plan
Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori presents a vivid picture of Japanese culture and history. As kids read through the third chapter, they find novel-specific vocabulary to enhance their understanding and use context clues to...
Curated OER
From Formal To Slang
Tenth graders define the term slang, explaining its various social, historical, and racial contexts, so as to articulate when it can be appropriately used as a means of effective communication. They use their own personal slang lexicon,...
Curated OER
The Raven
After a close reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" individuals copy the rhythm and rhyme scheme and rewrite the final stanzas of the poem.
Curated OER
Worth a Thousand Words: Depression-Era Photographs
Students view images of New Deal programs to see its successes. They work in groups to create captions for the images and suggest captions that might indicate different meanings.
Curated OER
In Remembrance of George Washington
Students explore the contributions of George Washington. In this early American history lesson, students analyze the provided eulogy for George Washington written by Henry Lee and then write their eulogies for the first president.
Curated OER
Making Words
Third graders spell words and define homophone. In this making words lesson, 3rd graders decipher words from letter strips in an effort to identify the "secret word". Students use a set of letters to spell different words.
Curated OER
Learning Words
Students listen to Jane Yolen's, All Those Secrets of the World. They engage in activities to find word meanings without using a dictionary. They practice using a vocabulary mapping handout.
Curated OER
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
"It is my lady, O, It is my Love!" Provide class members an opportunity to develop their skills reading difficult text with an exercise that focuses on the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet (Act II, scene ii). Using the provided...
Curated OER
"As You Like It" by William Shakespeare
Jacque's soliloquy from Act II, scene ii of As You Like It sets the stage for a close reading exercise that models how to approach difficult, dense text and enables readers to practice reading comprehension and analysis...
Curated OER
Comic Strip Context Clues
Second graders create dialogue for a comic strip using context clues to match the text to the pictures. They use comic blanks imbedded in this lesson. They write dialogue for each frame. Remind them to use the picture clues when writing...
Curated OER
Analyzing Unknown Words
Students analyze affixes and how they affect word meaning. In this language arts lesson plan, students use charts to construct and deconstruct words to find meaning.
Curated OER
Words, words, words
Pupils discuss words that represent the big ideas in Othello and that recur throughout the play. They are assigned words to track throughout the text, recording which character says the word and in what context.