Students read a given play. They choose the key scenes from the play and write a narration to carry the plot line between those scenes. They create a comic book that depicts these key scenes, complete with pictures and text balloons.

Pupils explore brochure writing. They work in groups to brainstorm and categorize important places in their community. In addition, they gather information from the Internet, take pictures using a digital camera, and create a community...

Fifth graders determine how freedom comes with rights and responsibilities through literature and poetry about World War II. In this World War II instructional activity, 5th graders use the letters in the word "infamy" to write an...

Clowns are a big hit with kids! Explore a few circus related websites to get an idea of how clowns look and what they do. They then build sculpting skills by creating expressive clown faces out of clay. Web links, materials list, and...

Your intermediate or advanced thespians choose dramatic scenes to perform in duos, small groups, or solo to demonstrate vocal and physical characterization. Use class time to prepare and rehearse. Detailed rubrics work for peer assessment.

Students identify the basic freedoms of citizens in the United States.  In this Bill of Rights activity, students act out scenarios about the Bill of Rights.  Students create a picture book describing the rights they've acted out.

Help your class transition into better writers with this lesson, which guides them through the process of adding transitions to increase sentence fluency and organization. The activity is designed for a classroom with a SMART board, but...

Students survey bebop, cool jazz, and hard bop. They explore how bebop, cool jazz, and hard bop reflected American culture and society in the 1940s and 1950s.

Students survey free jazz and fusion. They explore how free jazz and fusion reflected American culture and society in the 1960s and 1970s.

Learners work through a Haiku Organizer to determine the characteristics they use to write eight haiku poems on a theme that they choose. They design presentation folders of their completed work.

Students explore several different types of biographies to determine their area of interest, choose one notable person they would like to explore, complete online tutorial on biographies, and use written and Internet resources to...

Students visit a pumpkin farm and discuss the characteristics of a pumpkin and how they grow. They create a class story about the trip to the farm with each student supplying a sequence for the story.

Tenth graders explore narrative poetry. They analyze sections of a poem and present to groups. They compose their own narrative poems using pictures as prompts. They exchange their poems and analyze their classmate's poem.

Which comes first? The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, or Future? What clues can readers use to establish the chronology of A Christmas Carol? The tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, Marley, and Tiny Tim provides the text for an activity that...

While originally created to accompany The Cay, this poetry lesson could be used on it's own, especially if you are working on dialect. Class members conduct a close reading of "When Malindy Sings" by Paul Laurence Dunbar and listen to an...

The second lesson of a pair about Paul Laurence Dunbar, this plan focuses in particular on his poem, "We Wear the Masks." After a short historical introduction, class members conduct a series or readings, marking up the text and...

 “Words have colors, emotions, numbers, shapes, and personalities.” Daniel Tammet welcomes viewers to his world with a 10-minutes video that illustrates how he, as an autistic savant, perceives the world. Class members are then...

Students read several fairy tales of Russian origin. They brainstorm common elements of a fairy tale and identify those elements in several examples. They retell a favorite fairy tale through a skit, oral storytelling, a sketch, or a...

Review story elements with your class. They will use examples from a story to develop critical-thinking questions. Then they use a graphic organizer to describe the setting, character, and plot of the story, focusing on how they...

Students engage in a lesson which uses Washington's own words to illustrate the events leading to the establishment of our national government, and the crucial roles he played throughout that process.

Middle and high schoolers look at historical photos and written materials, and they develop questions which they use to interview an elder in their community. Learners are divided into groups and given sets of historical family photos...

Groups of learners research a city in Arkansas, then plan and create a brochure which would promote business growth in that city. The groups access the Internet in order to find out the necessary information about the town to put in...

Students complete a study of Japanese culture through haiku. They read and interpret haiku poetry and write haiku of their own.

Young scholars examine their own history to expand how they examine the world. They research being a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. They also examine Muslim culture.