Summary: Students will receive a choice board of different activities and will have to choose one.  After choosing their activity, students can be placed into small groups to work collaboratively or can work independently. Each team/student will be presenting to either the whole class or their small group. 

Students will receive a choice board of different activities and will have to choose one.  After choosing their activity, students can be placed into small groups to work collaboratively or can work independently. Each team/student will be presenting to either the whole class or their small group.

Students will receive a choice board of different activities and will have to choose one.  After choosing their activity, students can be placed into small groups to work collaboratively or can work independently. Each team/student will be presenting to either the whole class or their small group.  

In the summer of 1988, fires raged out of control in Yellowstone National Park. Though it seemed like total devastation to outsiders, the fires burned in only one-third of the park, and the new growth that resulted promoted the flourishing of certain birds, animals, and plants. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Mary Whitebird is about to turn eleven and take part in the Sioux coming of age tradition of Ta-Na-E-Ka. Literally translated as, flowering of adulthood, Ta-Na-E-Ka is a test of survival where participants are sent into the wilderness to survive for five days. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Tasha, a thirteen year old girl has to babysit her little 7 year old brother, Junior, because her mom is getting a job over the summer. Tasha really didn't want to and would do anything but babysit Junior. Her mom gave Tasha a long list of rules. Junior basically only had one: he was to listen to his sister. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments. Includes printable copies of text.

Students will explore how an artist emphasized the narrative in a work of art that depicts a single moment from the story. They then write a newspaper article, using visual clues in the painting to imagine how the narrative depicted many have unfolded.

In this lesson, students dig deeper into paragraphs 6-8 of Steve Jobs' Commencement Address in order to answer text dependent questions.

Students will closely observe objects, encouraging poetic, "outside the box" thinking, encouraging innovation, writing about setting, using descriptive details in writing.

In this lesson, students use timelines to help motivate them to read more nonfiction, which will, in turn, help increase their comprehension of nonfiction. Students begin with a discussion about timelines and their use to prepare for the research activity. Using a historical timeline and the students' prior knowledge of events, students predict when specific inventions were produced and take notes describing their reason for identifying that particular year.

To become a member of the ship’s crew, Charlotte Doyle must pass a test of climbing to the top of the mast. She faces physical and mental challenges to prove her worth to herself and the crew. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students use previewing to activate their prior knowledge and set a purpose for reading. Using a strategy called THIEVES, which is an acronym for title, headings, introduction, every first sentence in a paragraph, visuals and vocabulary, end-of-chapter questions, and summary, students are guided through a preview of a nonfiction text. After guided practice, partners work together to use the strategy to preview a chapter from a textbook.

Students can use the ADDIE Model Template to plan their project-based learning assignment.

Nadia’s parents were recently divorced and Nadia is spending the summer with her father in Florida, where Grandpa Izzy lives. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this unit from the Standford University The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute students develop a broader understanding of the struggle for equality from 1868 to the present by exploring first-person narratives from a diverse group of Americans. Beginning with a study of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, students determine the criteria for identifying an event as historically significant. Students then explore the impact of the struggle for equality by interviewing people in their community and utilizing resources such as Toni Morrison’s Remember: The Journey to School Integration, Voices of Civil Rights, a national oral history project by the Library of Congress, and StoryCorps, an independent non-profit project that focuses on oral history collections of individuals’ life experiences.

Lewis Carroll’s poem tells the tale of a walrus and a carpenter who invite a group of oysters to join them for a walk on a sunny beach in the middle of the night. The walk turns out to be a cruel trick as every one of the oysters gets eaten. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In “Water”, Helen Keller describes her first experiences with her new teacher. Keller finally grasps the idea that a word Anne Sullivan is spelling, water, corresponds to the water flowing over Keller’s hand. This insight leads Keller to make connections and open doors of knowledge and opportunity previously closed to her. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This "jigsaw" activity will give students the opportunity to work in groups to summarize a 1 to 2 page informational text. It "jigsaws" down to 1 class summary and can be done in 2 or 3 days.

This middle school lesson from the Anti-Defamation League provides an opportunity for students to learn about Malala Yousafzai, why she won the Nobel Peace Prize and to explore activism projects to address areas of injustice they see in the world.

After an overview of the events surrounding Paul Revere's famous ride, this lesson challenges students to think about the reasons for that fame. Using both primary and secondhand accounts, students compare the account of Revere's ride in Longfellow's famous poem with actual historical events, in order to answer the question: why does Revere's ride occupy such a prominent place in the American consciousness?