“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is famous, in part, because it established a uniquely American form of humor. For this famous story, Mark Twain combines the tall-tale, the dialect story, and satire. Here is a resource...

Investigate the nature of crime dramas on television. What exactly are they trying to portray? Questions and a comparison chart support learners as they watch shows from Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. An oral presentation...

What would it like to be the first person to achieve something? Read about Althea Gibson, the first black tennis player to win a Grand Slam title, to win at Wimbledon, and more. Class members respond to questions to demonstrate...

Young journalists use the E.S.C.A.P.E. (evidence, source, context, audience, purpose, and execution) strategy to evaluate historical and contemporary examples of bias in the news. The class then uses the provided discussion questions to...

What are the current trends in divorce? What contributes to this? Examine celebrity relationship trends and how they relate to the general public with this discussion lesson. Middle schoolers analyze the results of a Census Bureau study...

Who was Lorenzo de Zavala to the Texas Revolution, and how did he change the Alamo? Find out using an educational resource that asks learners to fill out graphic organizers and respond to short-answer questions to further solidify their...

Get the inside scoop on the European explorer, Christopher Columbus, with a response to reading worksheet that requires scholars to answer who, what, why, when, and a variety of other questions about the word crew.  

Teach your class about neutral rights with a brief reading selection and related questions. Pupils read the passage and answer the four questions on the bottom half of the page. Useful for a homework assignment or a quick warm-up, this...

Students examine the problems created by a lack of effective authority described in Mark Twain's Roughing It. They explain how we use authority to protect our rights, to provide order and security, and to manage conflict.

Teach your class about the Gulf War with an informational passage. Pupils read the one-page text and respond to four questions on the next page.

Students collect newspaper articles which discuss societies who enforce heterosexuality. They brainstorm how heterosexuality is enforced in their community. They answer questions to end the instructional activity.

Did Hiibel's arrest and conviction for not telling a police officer his name violate his rights? Have your learners read a short description of the case and answer the comprehension questions that follow. Resource links and...

West Side Story is widely known as a modern-day Romeo & Juliet. Learners read a list of characters from the play and list their counterparts from Romeo & Juliet before completing a vocabulary enrichment activity and word...

Same-sex marriage is the hot topic discussed in this New York Times article. Upper graders read the article and then answer eight comprehension questions. Note: This article is more about the Senate and legislation than about same-sex...

Should wilderness areas be preserved or managed? Class members examine primary source documents, including lecture notes, articles, essays and congressional records to better understand the Hetch Hetchy controversy that created a split...

Students examine work by Mark Twain in the context of pre- and post-Civil War America. In this cross curricular lesson, students gather biographical information about Twain, use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast him with...

Young scholars defend the Constitution against a group of Senators who decide that all media must be approved by the government, all Americans must take a loyalty oath, join an official U.S. religion and subscribe to approved clubs.

Students work together to participate in a labor market game. They discuss the concepts of supply and demand and how they relate to labor. They ask any questions they have to complete the lesson.

Students research and answer questions about a guardian ad litem. They are to create situations in which a guardian ad litem or child intermediary would be used.

Students, who are adult learners, participate in an Internet scavenger hunt in order to assimilate information about the biography of Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Papers. They look at the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers...

Students explore desegregation in the courts. In this civil rights lesson plan, students listen to their instructor present a lecture on Supreme Court cases Brown v. Board of Education and Plessy v. Ferguson. Students examine...

In this opinion activity, students think about heroes they know and reveal what they think about them by marking responses to the questions and completing the statements.

Learners explore ways in which they are smart. In this "getting to know you" classroom team building instructional activity, students discuss various ways people can be smart and describe ways in which they are smart. Learners listen to...