Introduce middle schoolers to Poet Laureate Joy Harjo with a lesson that not only explains the role and duties of the Poet Laureate but also contains a video in which Harjo explains what she sees as her responsibility as a Native...

A 154-page anthology explores the life, culture, and history of Native Americans. Eight lessons follow the routine of introducing the reading, conducting the reading, discussing it, doing word work, then taking part in an extension...

The 2016-2017 protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) motivated Camille Seaman to create "We Are Still Here," a photo essay featuring portraits of contemporary Native Americans who protested the pipeline. This eight-page...

How do you rebuild a language that has been banned for years? A short video introduces high schoolers to Marie Wilcox, A Wukchumni Native American from Central California who, for over 20 years, worked on comprising a dictionary of the...

Get to know inventor, Granville T. Woods. Who is he? From what state did Woods come? What did he design? All questions your scholars will find the answers to with this response-to-reading worksheet. 

Women's voices are becoming more prominent in the world of literature, but for centuries, this wasn't the case. Young historians research a woman whose writings are considered to be lost, out of print, or forgotten. They develop an oral...

Read about the tumultuous beginning to the United States with an informational text passage about Colonial America. As young researchers peruse an article about the arrival of the Mayflower, the settlers' relationship to the neighboring...

The most famous climbers of Mount Everest could never have made it to the summit without the assistance of the local Sherpa. Christine Taylor-Butler's nonfiction children's book Sacred Mountain: Everest is the focus of an extensive...

Extend a class reading of the novel The Sign of the Beaver across all subject areas with this literature unit guide. From basic discussion questions and writing prompts, to a research project about tracking animals, this...

Reading about history is nothing like experiencing it firsthand. Encourage your eighth graders to do the next best thing with a historical narrative prompt, in which they describe the experience of a first-time traveler on the...

Develop vocabulary in your high school native speakers or in advanced non-native speakers. THere are only six multiple-choice questions shown, but each contains more than one tricky vocabulary word. Example words include: oblivious,...

Students read about the life of Jim Thorpe and answer focus lessons about the book.  In this Jim Thorpe instructional activity, students celebrate the American Indian culture and learn of the hardships Jim Thorpe overcame. ...

Students explore holidays by participating in class singing activities. In this Thanksgiving history lesson, students discuss the importance of Thanksgiving Day and read several poems which discuss the history of Thanksgiving. Students...

Fourth graders create a calendar about their state. In this state calendar lesson, 4th graders select a state theme and create a calendar based on that theme. Students write paragraphs for each month related to the theme and design the...

Students assess how point of view can change a story. In this content area reading lesson, students read about the Battle of the Little Bighorn from three different sources. Students answer questions based upon their reading and draw...

You're going to wish you had a watermelon for this instructional activity! Class members read about watermelons and make a salad in class to sample. They also perform estimates, measurements and calculations on a watermelon. They predict...