Your developing literary critics discuss 'perspective' and discuss how the same occurence can be interpreted by two different people in two different ways. They read Ryszard Kapuscinski's untitled poem, infer meaning of the poem, and...

The Humane Society provides a lesson in which class members explore the issue of tethering dogs. Through the resources used -- a comic, a poem, and narrative and expository writings -- class members realize that messages can be conveyed...

Pupils explore fiction and nonfiction writing. They identify the elements of fiction in a short story and identify the criteria necessary in a nonfiction piece. Students distinguish the author's purpose in an expository text,...

Science over humanity? Scholars analyze an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. They must consider if the experimentation of Henrietta's cells without her consent was worth the information gained about cancer. They discuss...

Students inquire about the Holocaust. In this Holocaust instructional activity, students read books and discuss their thoughts. Students also collect current event articles from newspapers. Students investigate ghettos, Pearl Harbor and...

Use a series of extension activities to enhance your class reading of Chris Van Allsburg's holiday classic, The Polar Express. From a biography of the author to filmed book reviews and research about the railroad, kids can take...

Students examine the writing techniques of professional authors and apply them to their own work. In pairs, they email authors to discover the tricks of the trade. Students create their own Website for their work.

After watching part of a Club Write Kids video and discussing the editing process, each group of learners writes a letter to a favorite author. They ask for a copy of a page of manuscript that has gone through the editing process. Prior...

Students read, "Research Shows TV PSAs Effective In Reducing Teen Marijuana Use", discuss the article with questions imbedded in the lesson plan and write their own PSA.

Despite the passing of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, as well as the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the struggle to ensure fair voter registration and election procedures continues. Young historians...

Are you teaching Modernism to your class? Connect different areas of artistic expression in the Modernist Era. Learners read T.S. Eliot, view art by Pablo Picasso, and listen to a Modernist musical composition. This final assignment is...

Here is a fun resource that your kids will love. While reading the book Because of Winn-Dixie, they analyze the story's main characters by creating an online scrapbook. The purpose is to have them identify character traits and use...

Eighth graders study the life and writing of Edgar Allan Poe in this unit of work.

Fourth graders write a summary for each chapter as they read a novel. They summarize the author's purpose and point of view after completing the novel. They also describe about how the author's point of view affected the novel.

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....

Introduce your young readers to fiction written by women authors. For each story, they explore the way these daughters discover and claim their own identities. Individually, class members use the literature to examine their role in their...

Imagine a project that informs and entertains. Replace book reports with a bulletin board that highlights all the important elements of a novel. Readers research the author, create a timeline of events in the story, write a...

If you teach AP English language and composition and are looking for a way to address the differences between written and spoken arguments, consider this lesson. Over the course of three days, class members research Charles Darwin or...

Left-to-right, left-to-right, that's the way we read and write! Watch this short video clip and teach your young learners this chant before they start writing! 

If you're teaching point of view, this is the lesson for you! First, decipher the writer's point of view from a primary resource, then compare and contrast the primary source with a secondary source to explore the Paul Revere's...

What was the purpose of the Enrollment Act of 1863? Pupils consider the topic while completing the novel study for The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick. They write original similes and answer reading...

Enter the fantastical world of  "Dungeons and Dragons" and other role-playing games with this instructional activity from The New York Times. Middle schoolers create the outline for a role-playing game based on their own...

I Have A Dream ... that after the lesson, all individuals master the reading, writing, researching, listening, and speaking skills the biography project helps them develop. Martin Luther King, Jr. serves as a topic example for a model...

Women's voices are becoming more prominent in the world of literature, but for centuries, this wasn't the case. Young historians research a woman whose writings are considered to be lost, out of print, or forgotten. They develop an oral...