Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...
Curated OER
Advertising in the Contemporary World: An Introduction to Persuasive Texts
Beginning a persuasive writing unit with your middle schoolers? Approach it through something that persuades us all: advertising! Through studying video and print advertisement, your class will practice Common Core skills for reading...
Curated OER
Predict and Clarify with The Old Woman & Her Pig
Primary readers predict and check for understanding by using comprehension strategies. Prepare readers the first day by frontloading vocabulary and using pictures to visualize the words. On the second day, read the story The Old Woman...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Are you the oldest in your family? The youngest? The middlest? How do you feel about your place in your family? After reading such stories as My Rotten, Redheaded Older Brother by Patricia Polacco and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by...
Curated OER
Positive Guidance Techniques
While this lesson focuses on appropriate behavior management techniques used in the home, it could apply to the classroom as well. Included are several PowerPoint presentations, Notes, and Stories, on positive behavior management...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Dance Critic
What do writing and dance have in common? They both have a six-trait rubric for assessment. Just like a good story, a good dance must have a hook, beginning, middle, end, logical sequence, and a climax. Learners use a structured...
Curated OER
What's Outside the Window
What do your students see when they look outside the window? This project lets their imagination go wild, and lets you see what kind of daydreaming they do best. They each draw, paint, and color an image of what they imagine as they are...
Trinity University
Who Am I? Using Personal Narrative to Reflect on Identity
Who am I? Pupils work to answer this question through a unit that explores personal narratives and identity. Exit tickets for activities that examine different poems, short stories, and autobiographical writing serve as prewriting for...
Curated OER
Positive Guidance Techniques
Students study different guidance techniques for Students. They apply their knowledge by creating a roller-box story to share with the class.
Curated OER
Seasons
Students listen to stories about the seasons, and discuss the kinds of clothing people wear for each season. They take a walk, collecting items to go with each season, then draw pictures to match the season.
Lycoming College
An Author Study of Jan Brett
Jan Brett, the author of many beloved children's books, is well worth a study. Try out this winter-themed unit, which covers areas of language arts as well as art, math, science, and social studies.
Curated OER
Water World Story
Fourth graders write a story about how a drop of water may have traveled to school. They design a presentation on the water cycle.
Curated OER
Math Operations/Formulas
Students discuss the ways spreadsheets can help them solve story problems. In groups, they must set up a spreadsheet with the correct formulas based off of different scenerios using the correct order of operations. To end the lesson,...
EMC
The Inn of Lost Time Reader's Resource
Introduce "The Inn of Lost Time" by Lensey Namioka to your middle schoolers with a reader's resource page. It includes links to different activities, including a creative writing prompt about losing fifty years of your life, and a...
Curated OER
The Tell-Tale Heart
Readers listen and critically read fictional prose to answer prediction questions at designated stopping points, and then they give a summary of the short story. This lesson is ideal for English language learners developing English...
Curated OER
Allusions, Slang, and Literary Analogies
Partners identify literary allusions using a provided worksheet and use this knowledge to examine the allusions in Toni Cade Bambara's "Raymond's Run." The class also examines the impact of allusions and slang on the tone of the story.
Curated OER
People are People
Explore human diversity in this human rights instructional activity. Middle schoolers compare novels, speeches, videos, and short stories that promote diversity and basic human rights. They complete daily coursework as they read the...
Curated OER
Celebration
Students identify the different ways in which different countries celebrate and why, including story, dance, music, and exchanging gifts. Then they develop a basic standard of non-verbal communication through either dance, mime,...
Curated OER
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Students understand the process of recycling. They investigate how it improves the environment. They read the story "Don't Pollute" by Stan and Jan Berenstein. They analyze trash and sort it into bins.
Curated OER
Picture This: Visualization
Sixth graders practice visualizing and understanding that visualization is an important comprehension strategy. They share their visualization of the story through original artwork and determine that ideas, and cultural settings can...
Curated OER
Self Acceptance
Students explore their own self concept. They draw a picture of themselves, read a story, and write a story that has a character like themselves. Afterward, they write and illustrate their stories in PowerPoint.
Curated OER
Disease Lesson Plan
Students research the bubonic plague including disease facts, the time frame of outbreaks and the impact it had on society. They examine the work of Edgar Allen Poe and write an essay explaining why the plague was a subject of interest...
Curated OER
Health: Influences on Decisions
Students discover factors influencing their decisions after explaining their reasons for choosing favorite beverages. Working in pairs, they complete worksheets about the influences on decision-making. They write stories about...
Curated OER
Japanese Internment
Fourth graders practice their writing skills. In this reading comprehension lesson, 4th graders review baseball terminology and then read Baseball Saved Us. In this story students learn about Japanese Americans that were taken from...