Curated OER
Create a Word Graveyard to Teach Synonyms
Students explore descriptive writing by creating headstones. For this memorial lesson, students utilize an 11" x 17" piece of paper to create a cemetery headstone memorializing a word rather than a person. Students decorate their...
Curated OER
Teach Text Structure for Nonfiction
Students gain a strong foundation for reading, writing, and using nonfiction through this lesson. They gain an awareness and general understanding what text structures are. Students also identify and interpret what clues they can use...
Curated OER
Pop Secret Information
Learners design procedures for increasing the popping rate of a set amount of popcorn kernels. They propose and test a "secret" addition to the corn popping procedure which they expect would increase the popping rate and then write lab...
Curated OER
Business Writing Lesson Plan:
Students learn the importance of business writing, including content and presentation. They improve their usage of punctuation and commas.
Curated OER
Organizational Patterns: Comparison and Contrast Writing
Students write an essay comparing and contrasting their school experiences. Through guided practice, they create an outline of their elementary school experience and middle school experience. Using their outlines, students synthesize...
Curated OER
Teach Text Structure for Nonfiction
Students explore the patterns of text structure to anticipate the kind of information that a reading might present. The lesson examines some of the components of reading writing and using nonfiction.
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension: History of the Periodic Table
Although the article that launches this lesson is about the history of the Periodic Table, the objective is reading comprehension. Using the eight-page informational text, learners answer five comprehension questions and craft one essay....
Curated OER
Captions and Graphic Aides
Fifth graders read a book. For this informational text features lesson, 5th graders define captions and their purpose. Students view an article and discuss the graphic aides that assist comprehending the information...
Curated OER
Picture This
A unique writing lesson, this plan begins with learners talking about multiculturalism in small groups. Each learner will choose a picture from a newspaper, describe it to their small group, and think about how it relates to...
Curated OER
Pizza Biography
A biography writing lesson plan with a tasty twist! Kids create a "visual biography" in which each pizza slice represents a paragraph, and toppings represent supporting details. They learn research techniques, note-taking skills, and how...
Curated OER
Sippin' on Smoothies
Why is calcium good for the body? Where is it stored? Young chefs discover the importance of calcium and review a list of foods that are rich in the material. They then make delicious smoothies high in calcium! Teaching kids how to...
Curated OER
Money Management Part II: Checking Accounts
Having money is great, learning to manage it wisely is imperative. First, the class has a discussion on the value and convenience of having a checking account. Then, they practice filling out deposit slips, keeping an account register,...
Curated OER
English Lesson Plans for Grade 8
Demonstrate how to engage in a polite and professional conversation with this banking and interfacing lesson. Focusing on explanatory and informaitonal texts, middle schoolers write sentences using banking and finance terminologies....
Curated OER
Encouraging Students to Embrace Their Inner Author
Everyone is a writer! Youngsters compose an original piece of writing. In this writing lesson plan, they come up with their own idea for a piece of writing, revise it, and then publish it with illustrations. This lesson plan includes...
ReadWriteThink
Who’s Got Mail?
Today's kids are probably not familiar with the conventions of letter writing, due to the boom of technology. Here is a lesson plan that will provide opportunities for formal and informal letter writing.
Curated OER
Budget Busters
Use this economic activity to focus on writing summaries of informational text. First, middle schoolers define common economic terms used to describe news about the economy. They closely read news about the federal budget deficit and...
Curated OER
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
Read an article about the migration of our ancestors and write a paragraph. Pupils paraphrase and summarize to restate the information found in a nonfiction text. They write a shortened version of the reading to demonstrate the...
EngageNY
Launching the Performance Task: The1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
Picture that! Pupils view photographs of the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, discussing what they know and wonder about each image. Then, scholars watch a short video about the historic event and complete a KWL...
Curated OER
Rachel's Life is in a Hole
Explore how lack of access to water impacts peoples' lives in poor countries. Through text reading and discussion, middle schoolers are presented with the story of a young girl who lives and functions with limited water resources. They...
Curated OER
Sufferin' Stereotypes
Examine how the media informs the way your class thinks about racial and ethnic differences. Additionally, middle and high schoolers discuss whether "objectionable material" in mass media from the past should be preserved.
Curated OER
Creating Compassionate Communities
Have you ever lost someone? Middle and high school learners journal about a time they experienced the loss of someone through death, divorce, moving, or another type of change. They share their responses and discuss an article relating...
Curated OER
An Animal Report
Third graders create reports in the fashion of small books. They write brief descriptions for a variety of topics and answering a variety of questions. They create a picture book for their individual animals. They utilize basic computer...
Curated OER
The Great Gatsby Historical Background Using Multi-Genre Research Project
Before beginning F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, create a historical context of the Roaring 20s with this lesson. Set up a gallery walk with the provided PowerPoint, which features 10 topics related to the 1920s. Then begin...
Curated OER
Using a Dictionary: Root Words
A dictionary is a very helpful tool. Teach your third graders how to locate words, define them, and understand what root words are. They look up 12 words, write their definitions, then determine the root word that helps categorize each...