Students develop a memorial to the slave who endured the Middle Passage. In this slavery memorial lesson, student culminate a unit of study about slavery by creating a memorial for Africans who traveled the Middle Passage to slavery....

Students research the Atlantic slave trade during the 18th century. In this slave trade lesson, students read a narrative about colonial expansion in the Americas and the rise of slavery in the United States. Students write down what...

Ready to interpret the Declaration of Independence and understand its meaning? The resource divides scholars into pairs, where they work as a team to match translations with excerpts from the declaration. The class then engages in...

Imagine being a child forced from your home and into a concentration camp during World War II. Scholars prepare for a visit to the United States Holocaust Museum by researching the children of the horrible event. They analyze...

Seventh graders investigate the slave trade. In this Middle Passage lesson, 7th graders read excerpts of ship logs from Connecticut Slave Trade ships. Students respond to the provided analysis questions based on the logs. 

Reading is reading, whether it's for drama or English class. Boost reading fluency, accuracy, intonation, and comprehension while fostering creative acting skills. Kids read the provided tale of "The Lion and the Mouse" several times in...

Examine how the 'safe passage' for Palestinians between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank affects those living in Israel and reflects both conflict and cooperation between the Israelis and Palestinians. The class compares the perspective...

Eighth graders explore The Middle Passage and the Triangular Trade Route. They read their text to explore the treatment of African slaves and their route to America. After observing maps and pictures of slave ships, 8th graders share...

Ninth graders examine the American Slave Trade.  In this World History lesson, 9th graders analyze photos of the Middle Passage.  Students read an account of a person on one of the Middle Passage voyages. 

Explore Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in this literature analysis lesson. Middle schoolers read and summarize the plot of the story. They then adapt passages for a contemporary audience and analyze the...

Explore ancient warfare through a dramatic reading of select portions of The Iliad with your class. They will identify the major characters in The Iliad and explain the strategies, external forces, and alliances of the Trojan War

Learning to read between the lines, to recognize the on-the-surface meaning as well as the implied or inferred meaning of text, is an important skill for all readers. The materials and activities in this 73-page packet are designed to...

We're off to see the wizard! Practice making inferences in literature with two sample paragraphs from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Each passage provides questions about the pleasantness of the place it describes, and...

Middle school science stars examine fuels and energy with a variety of activities. They begin with a KWL chart, read an informative passage, and then complete a puzzle. The puzzle itself is included. Cleverly, each piece corresponds to a...

In this reading comprehension activity, students read a passage from the Middle Ages that says bad things about the youth in the early 12th century. Students answer 9 multiple choice questions about the passage.

Try out this reading passage when teaching your class about the 1920s and 1930s. After reading the text, which provides an overview of some major events in these years, learners respond to five related questions.

Should the work of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences be funded by the government? Middle schoolers weigh in on the status of federal funding for programs that protect the environment with three text passages...

Want your class to digest text more thoroughly? Middle schoolers learn about the digestive system in the lesson and reinforce informational text reading skills through a variety of strategies. They engage in a close reading...

How confident are your readers in responding to short reading passages? Find out with a activity that reinforces reading comprehension skills and requires self reflection on one's ability to read and answer questions pertaining...

In this slave trade worksheet, students complete a chart about the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings people felt during the middle passage in the slave trade.

Introduce some nonfiction reading into your classroom! This resource contains seven comprehension questions pertaining to an article from The New York Times website about the first middle schoolers to ever win the United States Chess...

Learners define the key terms presented in the lesson. Students identify and describe the social structure of Southern society . Learners explain how slavery evolved in the colonies and how slaves maintained their culture in the colonies.

Tone and mood are easy to use interchangeably—and yet they are very different elements of literature. Help middle schoolers discern between the way a speaker feels about his or her subject and the way the audience is meant to feel with a...

The Navajo would disagree with Shakespeare that the naming of things is irrelevant. Navajo people have to earn their names. Middle schoolers learn about the cultural significance of Navajo names in a lesson that uses a video and reading...