Virginia Department of Education
Developing a Research Strategy - Define Your Topic
Your budding scholars spent the day in the library looking for a topic for their research essay, and now they are all in tears because there is too much information available on their topics. Wipe those tears away with the ideas and...
Curated OER
A Year in Review: The Memoir
If you are planning a unit on memoir and autobiographical narrative, you should consider this resource. Using Internet research skills, pupils review works by James Frey and Henry David Thoreau. In response to these works, learners...
Curated OER
Breaking Barriers
Determine how African-Americans have broken barriers in this history lesson. Middle schoolers discuss the 15th Amendment and the American civil rights movement prior to analyzing Barack Obama's speech "A More Perfect Union," taking care...
Curated OER
Charles Darwin Meets John Paul II
If you teach AP English language and composition and are looking for a way to address the differences between written and spoken arguments, consider this lesson. Over the course of three days, class members research Charles Darwin or...
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New York State Testing Program: English Language Arts Book 2
Practice listening and writing skills with this resource. This is a test created by the New York State Testing Program. Learners listen to a passage called "Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa" twice and write responses to the selection. They...
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Race and Crime in the United States: Are We Victims of Discrimination or Antiheroes?
Using methods adopted by Public Policy Analysts (PPA) class groups define a social problem, gather evidence to document the existence of the problem, identify causes, evaluate existing policies designed to deal with the problem, develop...
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Trek Across America
Bring a time machine into your classroom with this writing lesson, in which young writers project themselves back in time and have a variety of choices from that point forward. They either write a conversation with a historical figure,...
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Whose Point of View? The Journey of Three Generations
A reading of Whale Journey, a fact-filled picture book by Vivian French, launches a study of the life cycle and migration of three generations of gray whales. The interdisciplinary lesson plan offers opportunities extensions into all...
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Persuasive Speech in Julius Caesar
After reading Julius Caesar 1.2 and 1.3, break your class into pairs for this role-play. Each pair will receive one of four prompts (or more, if you create additional examples), in which one person tries to persuade the other to do...
San José State University
The Quotation Mark
Review where quotation marks belong and what they are used to indicate. From direct speech to in-text citations, young writers will find this worksheet quite useful. Several exercises at the bottom, along with a key, give learners...
Workforce Solutions
A Colony for Lunar Living
Two lessons explore the possibility of living on the moon. First, scholars read various scenarios to identify which careers would best transfer to life in space. Finally, pupils examine a website to locate items made for outer space,...
University of Iowa
Every Atom: Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
Discussion questions for Walt Whitman's "Son of Myself" ask class members to reflect on the beauty that can be found in labor, the sense of identity that transcends divisions, and on the many riddles in Whitman's poem. ...
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Posting Personal Testimonies on the Web
Students read literature based on family heroes. They discuss the concepts of friendship, loyalty and death. They write their own stories of courage and post them to a webpage.
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The Editing Process
Students in upper-level college-bound English classes review the editing process and terms such as, tone, diction, transition, and conclusion. They read and evaluate a sample essay and identify parts they feel they could improve on. ...
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House on Mango Street
Students complete a guided reading study and autobiographical essay for Sandra Cisneros' House on Mango Street. In this literary analysis lesson plan, students read the novel, complete novel response activities, book review worksheets,...
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Pair-Share: Constructing Paragraph Order
Students write with controlled and/or subtle organization. They identify the main idea and explicit details. Students analyze paragraph and essay structure. They utilize context clues to identify organization.
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Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"
Eleventh graders read Hawthorne's, "The Scarlet Letter" prior to doing the project. They find a contemporary person who has been shunned by society, write an essay, and give an oral presentation about the person.
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Character Traits and People in Black History
Third graders, after reading a one-page biographical essay, write in paragraph form how an African American has demonstrated a certain character trait.
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I Am a Star
Students explore the unique qualities of themselves and others. In this character education lesson, students read the book A Unicorn Named Beulah Mae and create a paper star displaying their unique personality traits.
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By Jove, I Think You've Got It
Students author a problem and solution essay. In this environmental stewardship activity, students conduct research and write an essay regarding an environmental topic of their choosing.
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I Have A Dream
Students create a reader response essay as they react to the I Have A Dream speech made by Martin Luther King. For this Martin Luther King lesson plan, students read the speech, fill out a Civil Rights movement sheet, have discussions,...
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Students Speak Out: A Discussion Activity
Students read a collection of student essays addressing racism and racial disparities and discuss them. In this racism lesson plan, students discuss the essays and talk about their impact.
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The Individual and His Role in Society
Tenth graders discover how various writers approach the themes of : alienation and solitude, living life "deliberately" and "phonies." Through reading, journaling, class discussion, and writing assignments they realize the power of the...
Curated OER
Champions Of The Land
Students write an abstract of a book concerning conservation. In this environmental activism instructional activity, students explore books such as Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Students choose a book about conservation from a...