Film English
The Beauty of a Second
Add many seconds of beauty to your class with a short film and related project. The resource centers around a competition based on one-second segments of film, and the final compilation that came from the contest. Pupils identify...
Curated OER
Foreshadowing and Prediction: W.W. Jacob's, "The Monkey's Paw"
W.W. Jacobs' story "The Monkey's Paw" provides plenty of foreshadowing which readers use to make predictions in this tightly composed, sound instructional plan. Your class reads the story, recording predictions and checking for veracity...
Curated OER
Character in a Box
Partners choose, research, and analyze fictional or historical characters and design character life boxes to represent them. They also compose a rhyme royal, which they understand inductively by deconstructing examples. Based largely on...
Curated OER
Phineas Gage: Questioning Strategy
Focus on chapter two of Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science with a questioning activity. After teaching and modeling several types of questions, learners work with partners and then independently to answer and...
Curated OER
Tangerine: K-W-H-L Strategy
As part of the introduction to Edward Bloor's Tangerine, class members generate a KWHL chart listing what they know, what they want find out, how they plan to find this information, and what they have learned or still want to learn.
Curated OER
Who is the Expert? Exploring Credible Sources in Healthcare
How do you decide what sources are credible when researching online? Evaluate sources with a focus on researching health issues. After brainstorming common health concerns and how they would try to diagnose these problems, class members...
Macmillan Education
The Tell-Tale Heart
Rather than who done it, the mystery literary detectives have to solve as they examine the evidence found in Edgar Allan Poe's famous "The Tell-Tale Heart" is why did he do it?
Curated OER
Sentences for Sight Word Dictation
Improve your learners' reading and writing skills with a set of sentences designed to help pupils work with sight words. The teacher dictates while the pupils write; this is followed by discussion. ...
Novelinks
The Lightning Thief: Before Reading Strategy
This pre-reading activity will certainly make your class ponder. With five questions to reflect upon, get insight to the moral dilemma Percy faced in the novel Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.
Curated OER
The Metamorphosis: Herber Readiness Activity
Delve into Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis before opening the book with a lesson on literary themes. High schoolers engage in a word association activity before reading a list of statements based on the book's...
Prestwick House
1984
Readers of Nineteen Eighty-Four use their answers to questions about George Orwell's tale to complete a crossword puzzle.
Penguin Books
A Teacher’s Guide to the Penguin Edition of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
The dry Oklahoma landscape in America's Dust Bowl sent many farmers in search of the promised land. A teacher's guide to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath discusses the characters' desire for a better home along with other themes...
Curated OER
Jacob Have I Loved
Students examine visual images about the novel, Jacob Have I Loved. They compare pictures from "America from the Great Depression to World War II" that are described in the book and other studies of the Chesapeake Bay. They present their...
Curated OER
Louisiana Crafts and Domestic Arts
Discuss with the class the reasons for identifying and defining the term material culture as refering to a vast array of objects and activities that people make and do traditionally. Your class can identify diverse crafts and decorative...
Curated OER
The Stuff of Stories: Using Museums to Inspire Student Writing
Middle schoolers write descriptions, narratives, and dialogues based on objects of art and time periods in a museum. They base several writing assignments on art objects and paintings, including a literal description and an emotional...
Curated OER
War Poetry, Journals and Letters: Viet Nam
Examine letters written during war-time. In this cross curricular history and English instructional activity, middle and high school scholars read letters and poems written by soldiers in the Vietnam war. They will examine the...
Curated OER
Identify Genre, Subgenre, and Author's Purpose
Explore genre, subgenre, and author's purpose in this helpful activity. Middle schoolers read several summaries of books and short stories, and identify the genre and subgenre. They also determine if the author's purpose is to entertain,...
Curated OER
Unlikely Diary keepers Using Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin
Put your class in the shoes of someone - or something - else with this lesson, which encourages writers to keep a diary from the perspective of a living creature or an abstraction. Use Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm and the Six Trait...
Curated OER
Pink and Say
Read Pink and Say and discuss the Civil War with your upper elementary learners. They create a KWL about the Civil War and record words relating to the Civil War as they read the book. Then they work in groups to create an ABC...
Curated OER
Marketing to Teens: Parody Ads
High schoolers deconstruct advertising messages by analyzing parody ads and exploring the purpose of satire. Then they create their own parodies based on real ads discussed in class. A creative activity to extend any study of media,...
Curated OER
Literary Analysis: Summary vs. Analysis
What is the difference between summary writing and literary analysis? A 16-slide presentation offers some basic requirements for both types of writing and helps readers identify each based on keywords used in both types of writing....
Curated OER
KWHL Questioning Strategy for Briar Rose
Whether new to the KWHL strategy or not readers of Briar Rose will benefit from the detailed procedures and templates designed for Jane Yolen’s novel. Links are provided for research into the Holocaust and activities reveal the many...
Novelinks
Man's Search for Meaning: K-W-H-L Strategy
Prior to reading Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, class members use the provided worksheet to list what they know about the Holocaust, what they want to know, and how they will find the information they seek. After...
Curated OER
Tangerine: Cubing Strategy
Here's an activity that uses a reading comprehension strategy based on Bloom's taxonomy to focus readers' attention on key passages from Edward Bloor's Tangerine. Worthy of a place in your curriculum library.