Jump into traditional Chinese culture with budding readers as they examine vocabulary in context through Shirin Yim Bridge's book Ruby's Wish. This book is read on YouTube if you don't have it on hand. Scholars are briefly...

Designed for Hard Gold, a novel in Avi's I Witness series, this teaching guide includes a summary of the story and information about the writer as well as chapter-by-chapter vocabulary lists, text-based reading questions,...

Students complete a history and research instructional activity about the Gold Rush using selections from Jack London. In this Gold rush research instructional activity, students research the Klondike/Alaska Gold Rush and use details...

In this historical reading comprehension learning exercise, students read a factual account of the Gold Rush. Students answer 14 questions about the passage.

How did San Francisco supply enough water for its residents over the last two centuries? Learn about droughts and water conservation in California, as well as specific historical events that led to the water system today. Kids read...

Students study the concept of the westward expansion. In this exploration of the western U.S. lesson, students participate in different activities that explain economic hardships, jobs, and land opportunities. Students describe...

Students explain how California became an agricultural and industrial power, tracing the transformation of the California economy and its development since the 1850's.

Young scholars create scripts about California settlers. The document reflects the settlers' fears, expectations, and realizations.

Prompt your class to interact with Jack London's Call of the Wild. By analyzing the events in the novel, middle schoolers discover how human experiences create who a person becomes. They critique and analyze the reading, focusing on...

Using a paragraph from Jack London's Call of the Wild, readers demonstrate their ability to identify the main idea and supporting ideas in a passage.

Text of the short story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" by Bret Harte, an American author who often wrote about the California Gold Rush. (Free site registration offers some additional features, e.g., the ability to insert annotations.)

"Von Kempelen and His Discovery" by Edgar Allan Poe was written as a hoax to deter "forty-niners" from rushing to California in search of gold. Read the full text on this site.