Your class can take turns describing a well know location or setting without giving its name, and the rest of the class can try to identify the location, based on the details given.  They chart the elements that helped in the...

How can you read a character's tone? What about a narrator's tone? Analyze Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with a lesson that focuses on how word choice can change tone and how tone can affect the development...

Reading snail mail is a great way to go back into history and to understand others' points of view. The resource, the second in a five-part unit, covers the Dreyfus Affair. Scholars, working in two different groups, read one letter and...

How would the Pied Piper recover his damages from the deceptive citizens of Hamelin if the story took place today? Explore one of the Pied Piper's options with a short play that depicts a court case in which he sues the city of Hamelin...

Engage your youngsters in basic economics by connecting the terms to dessert and pizza! After a discussion about intermediate goods and natural resources, learners read and connect a pizzeria to economic terms.

Invite your young writers to take the reins with writing dialogue. Using two characters of their own creation, kids work with partners and then individually to write short conversations.

Young historians discover the life of an incredible African American woman who, as an anti-slavery lecturer prior to the Civil War, defied stereotypes of what women could accomplish. Pupils explore the concept of stereotyping, read...

Eighth graders demonstrate their understanding with the final assessment in a literary analysis unit based on Karen Russell's short story, "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves." Having prepared for the assessment in the last few...

As a journalist, would you publish everything you heard or saw? Discuss the ethics of journalism with a lesson from PBS. Young reporters imagine themselves to be the editor of their school's newspaper, and as they read five scenarios,...

Connect with the text using helpful annotation strategies. As your class reads the first section of Karen Russell's short story, "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," they note important passages that establish character...

High school freshmen craft their own definition of honesty. They provide an example from their lives and reflect on the outcomes of their honest behavior. They also identify a time when they may have been dishonest in a relationship and...

In a hands-on learning activity, pupils read about and recreate the experience of Harriet Jacobs, author of one of the most famous slave narratives of all time in which she describes her years of hiding from her master in a confined...

Learning how to craft a cogent argument based on a solid claim, supported with evidence and solid reasoning, is an important life skill. Teach middle schoolers about argumentative writing with a lesson asking them to analyze the claims,...

Great for a reading intervention or remedial Language Arts class, this instructional activity uses two stories from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III ("Terri Jackson" and "Mary Lou" to reinforce note-taking skills, story elements,...

Use this SMART board activity with any short story in your unit plan. The SMART board file contains a step-by-step guide to plot diagrams, including an interactive practice page and an assignment. This resource is beneficial for language...

In this storytelling lesson, children practice re-telling the story of "How Bear Lost His Tale", review and write out the story sequence, and learn about homophones like tail/tale, sail/sale, etc. Extension activities for various content...

Learners write interrogative and declarative sentences in a short message. After seeing many examples of these types of sentences, students write sentences of their ownl.

Explore ancient Rome through reading The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare. Readers activate prior knowledge by examining objects that relate to the story and predict the significance of the items. Their curiosity is aroused...

Students examine the letter 'i'. Through instruction and modeling they explore the sound the letter makes, how the letter is written, words that contain the letter, etc. They use letterboxes to write 'i' words and read stories containing...

Eighth graders identify six story elements (setting, characters, character traits, plot, resolution, and point of view) and create short stories utilizing all six elements. They are introduced to story elements as the things that make up...

First graders demonstrate their ability to read with fluency, accuracy, and comprehension through phonemic awareness. They use a color-coding system to master the long and short vowel sounds and develop their skills in listening and...

Students complete close reading activities to analyze Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome. In this literary analysis lesson, students analyze key quotations from Ethan Frome and respond to contemporary reviews of the text. Students use textual...

Students read books, learn about the letter o, and sing nursery rhymes all to learn about owls. In this owls lesson plan, students also make owls out of their hand prints.

Learners listen to a story paying very close attention to the details of the events included. They then point out the main events of the story. Given six squares of construction paper with holes punched on right and left sides, the child...