Scholars watch a video or listen to a story about writing letters, then discuss their importance. A scavenger hunt challenges them to identify common elements of friendly letters and create an anchor chart. Pupils write letters to a...

Which is better—Chick-fil-A or MacDonalds? High schoolers learn how to craft an argument essay by beginning an opinion statement. They state a claim, back up their claim with evidence, and consider counter calms. Scholars then create a...

Let us be frank! Writers learn that crafting a thesis statement is not that difficult if one peals back the layers. After watching several videos about the elements of a thesis, class members read the article "Lettuce Club helps students...

A timelapse video hooks learners' attention to the phases of the moon. After discussing their observations, pupils use the Moon Giant website to view the moon on their birthday and complete a bar graph. The class creates an anchor chart...

Young scientists examine pictures of plants, then explore plant reactions found on the Missouri Botanical Gardens website. Scholars investigate why plants lean, then observe a plant of their own for six weeks to make new claims,...

The story, How Many Jelly Beans? by Andrea Menotti introduces a lesson about partial quotients. Mathematicians practice rounding and multiplying, then work in small groups to connect those skills with division and partial...

After reading Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," class members compare the characteristics of Ichabod Crane and Brom Van Brunt. Next, they read an article about ghosts that supposedly haunt the campus of Oklahoma...

A headless horseman? Really? A reading of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" launches a study of how to use the A-CLAP strategy to determine a story's credibility. Writers employ these techniques to craft their ghost stories and make them...

Teach readers how to distinguish between a topic and a story's theme in a short lesson that uses the children's book, Should I Share My Ice Cream, as an exemplar. After listening to the story, pairs generate a list of topics covered...

Need a hero? Super! Groups create their modern-day marvel and craft a narrative with all the elements required in such a tale.

Kate Chopin's short story, "The Story of an Hour" and John H. Young's "Our Deportment, or the Manners, Conduct, and Dress of Refined Society" offer high school juniors an opportunity to compare the role of women in the 19th century with...

Scholars examine a list of questions and sort them into corresponding groups based on similarities. A gallery walk allows peers to see how their peers sorted questions and leave notes. Costa's Level of Questions is the topic of a...

The Boston Massacre is the focus of a lesson plan that explores primary sources. Scholars examine two primary source images and discuss the different perspectives on the historical event. After groups read a researched account, they...

A word splash activity introduces scholars to the lesson's theme—cultural characteristics. First, in examining Little Red Riding Hood by The Brothers Grimm, learners highlight the cultural characteristics and then spot the...

Word clouds about ecosystems hook learners into a lesson that explores Yellowstone wildlife. Young scientists create cause-and-effect relationships after examining data and recommend solutions to their observed problems. More data...

Tacos are the theme of a lesson plan all about adjectives. Scholars list as many adjectives as possible to describe tacos and play a game of Not Like the Others before reading Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin. Peers guess their favorite...

A instructional activity introduces scholars to nouns and adjectives. After listening to a short story and practicing creating adjectives with a card sort, pupils go on a paper hunt to locate different types of paper, complete a chart...

Scholars, high schoolers, class members! With the help of this lesson, you too can identify the three persuasive appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) the characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar used to convince...

The theme of a work is not a single word! Rather it is a statement that reflects what a writer believes or wants readers to understand about a topic or subject. Here's a short, but powerful lesson that utilizes passages from The...

Make learning the definitions of literary terms memorable with a fun and engaging activity. Teams of scholars are given several terms and create an acrostic poem with simplified definitions and examples.

Two stories by Roald Dahl, "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "The Landlady" provide readers an opportunity to compare stories by the same author. After a close reading of the stories, teams select a character from one of the tales, craft...

Animals on Board! Stuart J. Murphy introduces scholars to composed numbers in preparation for writing and drawing true or false number sentences. A game of Bear in the Cave challenges pupils to locate a missing addend. Sorting...

Following a catchy video about decomposing numbers, young mathematicians build and write numbers using dice. Class members work to create an anchor chart that displays six ways to make numbers. Beans get scooped and estimated, then...

Ethics, emotion, reason—scholars investigate advertisers' persuasive techniques to attract buyers. After examining the techniques used in infomercials, writers craft a persuasive essay on a topic of their choice.