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 cross-curricular ELA/science module consists of three units. In Unit 1, students build background knowledge about the central role that water plays in all life. In Unit 2, students use the US Environmental Protection Agency My WATERS Mapper to explore major US watersheds and the USGS National Water Information System to examine their local watershed. Unit 3 provides scaffolding toward students' summative writing assessment.

In this lesson, students learn about using a web graphic organizer effectively as a prewriting tool for expository writing.

In this activity students will examine how attitudes towards slavery and the Civil War changed between 1860 and 1865. What began in the minds of President Lincoln and most northerners as a war to preserve the union changed, over the course of the war, into a war to free the slaves. This transformation occurred in large part because of the actions of enslaved and free African Americans themselves. Students will create a historical marker, based on historical evidence, that addresses the question: "What was the Civil War fought over?"

In this lesson, students write a compare/contrast essay about two cars to determine which one should be purchased.

Explore the traditions and conventions of haiku and compare this classic form of Japanese poetry to a related genre of Japanese visual art.

This lesson plan, which is adaptable for use in middle school as well, introduces students to a wide world of writing. Students begin by brainstorming a list of the types of writing people do on a daily basis. Then, students work together to classify those writing genres in various categories, such as formal and informal, public and private, and digital writing. Students then invite people into the classroom to talk about what, why, and how they write in real life. As a culminating activity, students reflect on how these varying purposes and processes can apply to their own lives.

In this lesson, students will write interview questions for a hypothetical eyewitness of the 1906 San-Francisco earthquake/fire.

In this lesson, students will read a model essay for gist and analyze a model essay against a rubric in order to understand how to design their own essay content.

In this lesson, students use a graphic organizer to synthesize and separate collected information.

Zlata's Diary chronicles the daily life of Zlata, an eleven year-old girl during wartime in Sarajevo, and the war's increasing impact on her hometown of Sarajevo and her family. This courageous, intelligent young woman has been called "the Anne Frank of Sarajevo" for her searing account of war's effects, but her story has had a happier ending. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.