The play's the thing that puts the play in a summer learning drama program designed to combat summer slide and encourage family literacy. Participants learn about drama as an art form, engage in dramatic presentations, write scripts, and...

What's the difference between story reading and story telling? Participants in a summer enrichment program learn all about the difference as they listen to famous speeches, engage in dramatic readings, and craft their own short stories...

Take note. Soul music. Gospel music. Country music. Summer comes alive with the sounds of music as program participants learn about various genres of music, create instruments, and write and perform songs about the facts and traditions...

Bully, bullied, or bystander? Paul Langan's The Bully is the anchor text in a unit that examines bullying and violence. After a close reading of the text, readers imagine themselves as the characters and consider how they would react in...

A carefully crafted three-day lesson integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The lesson activates...

Here are four lessons which are designed to get your high schoolers thinking about persuasion in different forms; persuasive writing and persuasive images. The goal of these lessons is to have learners become more aware of the tools of...

Are you just about to teach persuasion in your class? If so, you should consider this short unit. In small groups, learners create a product, develop a magazine ad for the product, and pitch this product to the class using a visual...

Create meaningful illustrations to accompany stories in a web-based art and literacy lesson focused on "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" by Rudyard Kipling. The class takes a virtual art safari with the Museum of Modern Art and then discusses how...

Ambition is the keyword of a lesson that focuses on the contributions made by famous female artists. Specifically looking at European artists, Luisa Roldan and Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, scholars examine a piece of their work then...

Reading, writing, and rings! A lesson from NASA combines space science with authentic reading and writing tasks. Included in this lesson are pre-reading activities, four mini informational booklets on Saturn, a structured...

"Friend, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears..." Those words begin one of the most persuasive speeches in literature. Explore the elements of persuasion in a series of lessons related to William Shakespeare's Julius...

A black raku tea bowl inspires a lesson on descriptive writing and the power of choosing words carefully to become stronger writers. The class inspects several images of a Japanese tea bowl, and then they use their imaginations to think...

Celebrate sean-nós, céilí, and the lilting music of the Emerald Isle with a set of language arts activities! Learners complete word puzzles, vocabulary exercises, and comprehension questions about traditional Irish music.

Dissect the parts of an advertisement with your class. Middle schoolers discuss advertisements and locate the hook in them. Then, they create an advertisement for a business, in which they include the name of the business, an...

How did jazz influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Class members read some of Ellison's non-fiction writings about blues and jazz, listen to records, watch videos, and engage in student-centered discussions. They then produce podcasts...

Who wouldn't love to get a letter from a blue bird? Elementary art enthusiasts analyze the social and historical context of Ason Yellowhair's Navajo piece, Bird and Cornstalk Rug. They examine the construction and images on the rug...

Consumer technology has made it possible for filmmakers to create entire movies from the comfort of their home computer. Guide high school film buffs through the process of designing a documentary with an extensive unit published by...

Fourth graders practice descriptive writing by describing a fictitious monster they created.  In this language arts instructional activity, 4th graders illustrate an image of a monster character they imagine and practice using their...

Young scholars write letters to penpals. In this geography/literacy lesson, students become penpals with a classroom in England to learn about customs and society across the ocean. Flat Stanley by Will Holton is read aloud, and young...

Students take virtual trip back in time to 1924 when a Dada manifesto sparked the Surrealist movement in Europe and the United States. They explore about the history of Surrealism and visit online galleries of notable artists of the past...

Students, after analyzing interactions between groups/societies, effects of causality/change over time, forms of imaginative writing and utilizing art media to conveying messages/meaning, examine the relationship between clothing and...

Students improve their creative writing skills. In this writing skills lesson, students learn about picture captions, story writing, critiques, poems, reports, letter writing, creative writing, and a rap poem.

Seventh graders write a five paragraph essay and then branch out from there.

As learners read each chapter of Eric Schwartz's Crossing the Seas, they analyze the actions of United States in Venezuela, Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the intent of the Monroe Doctrine. They then compare...