In this activity, students research a decade in their school’s history. Within each group, students take on specific roles such as archivist, manager, techie, or researcher. Students become active archivists, gathering photos, artifacts, interviews, and stories for a museum exhibit that highlights one decade in their school’s history. The final project can be shared and displayed in your classroom, in the school auditorium or in the library.

In this lesson, students review types of context clues and practice using them to define vocabulary words.

A series of worksheets with answer keys to help students of differing levels define unfamiliar vocabulary using context clues.

A collection of worksheets for various student levels to help define unfamiliar vocabulary in contextual readings. (Note: scroll down to bottom of page for worksheet links to grades 6-12.)

This resource contains a collection of worksheets on the proper use of contractions.

In this lesson, students use the Cornell notes tool to do close reading of informational text.

Includes six text-dependent questions, one constructed response writing prompt, and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

In this CCSS lesson, students will explore these stories through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Students will develop characters as part of a narrative involving creatures that reside in a student's imagination.

This lesson uses creatures created from students' imaginations to teach hyperbole, simile, metaphor, and alliteration in association with creative writing.

For this lesson, students participate in group discussions about learning, identify and agree on classroom goals and needs, and refer to established goals on a long-term basis in variety of ongoing classroom events and activities.

This lesson asks students to explore the motivation behind characters' actions in To Kill a Mockingbird. Students first engage in a freewrite activity. They then do research and creative thinking to design a poster and plan a presentation representing a psychological profile for a selected character, while determining what specific factors (such as family, career, environment, and so forth) have the greatest influence on the characters' decision making throughout the novel. The groups present their findings to the class by assuming the persona of their character and explaining the psychological factors influencing their behavior in the novel

Students will use graphic organizers to assist the development of comparative vocabulary and generate discussions of analogy and metaphor in art as students go on a real or virtual tour of an art gallery.

Students listen as the teacher reads different picture books by Ezra Jack Keats. Following the story, the students undertake class discussion and compare the different stories and plots using a story mapping graphic organizer. As a culminating project, students choose their own characters, define a problem and a solution appropriate for their characters, and then write their own problem-solving stories.

This lesson and resource engages students in a metacognition exercise about critical thinking and also practice research and informational writing skills using a collection of critical thinking quotes.

Awareness and true understanding of other cultures can create the desire to take action. In this lesson, students learn about Palestinian Arabs. After exploring the culture in a book and online, students identify a current social issue that concerns them. In a formal letter written to an appropriate official, students identify these issues and discuss suggestions of ways the problems might be addressed.

The lessons in this curriculum resource will guide students through reading strategies, debate, individual reflection, group activities, and discussions of The Scarlet Letter.

This curriculum guide covers six works of Laurie Halse Anderson (Chains, Forge, Ashes, Fever 1793, Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution, and Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving), and contains discussion prompts, key vocabulary terms, and ideas for assignments and activities related to each book.

This resource includes an excerpt from the book, "Two Hot Dogs with Everything", six text-dependent questions, one constructed-response writing prompt, and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

Students will perform a close reading of Mark Antony's from Shakespeare's Julis Caesar 3.1 monologue by cutting the text by 50%. Students will evaluate use of tone within the speech and choose appropriate tone words for the monologue. Students will then perform the monologue for the class.