This lesson uses Jane Addams Award-winning books to explore author's voice and style. The Jane Addams Book Awards are given to children's books that effectively promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races. After reading and examining The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark by Carmen Agra Deedy, a Jane Addams Honor Book in 2001, students choose another Jane Addams Award-winning book for personal investigation of author's voice. This lesson is designed for students in grades 6 to 8, but can be adapted for other grade bands as well.

Change is an inevitable part of life that challenges many young adults. Understanding and accepting change are key components in career and future planning. In this lesson, students explore the theme of change through allegory and poetry by reading an example of literary allegory and creating their own pictorial allegories. Students first define allegory and complete a pictorial allegory or "me tree" that displays phrases describing their interests, trails, and dreams on outlines of their hands. Next, they read and discuss a text, such as Shel Silverstein’s, The Giving Tree or Sandy Stryker's Tonia the Tree that addresses change, and then review basic literary concepts as they complete a literary elements map and plot diagram. Finally, students further explore change, and what it means to them, as they write diamante poems related to the theme of change.

In this lesson, students are encouraged to explore the idea of memory in both large- and small-group settings. Students access their own life experiences and then discuss family stories they have heard. After choosing a family member to interview, students create questions, interview their relative, and write a personal narrative that describes not only the answers to their questions but their own reactions to these responses. These narratives are peer reviewed and can be published as a class magazine or a website.

This lesson provides hands-on differentiated instruction by guiding students to search for the literal definitions of figurative language using the Internet. It also guides students in understanding figurative meanings through the use of context clues and making inferences.

In this lesson students do a close reading of “Learning to Read,” a poem by Francis Watkins Harper about an elderly former slave which conveys the value of literacy to blacks during and after slavery. The activities also prompt students to examine the nature of literacy in the 21st century and the value they put upon it.

The Frayer Model is a strategy that uses a graphic organizer for vocabulary building. This technique requires students to (1) define the target vocabulary words or concepts, and (2) apply this information by generating examples and non-examples. This information is placed on a chart that is divided into four sections to provide a visual representation for students.

Students will investigate the global food crisis by gathering information through research—informational reading, photographs, videos, etc. Through their research, students will be able to define and understand the meaning of food insecurity while taking into account the many injustices in food availability around the world. This lesson was developed by Emily Waddington as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.

In this lesson, students can explore for themselves the problem Tom Sawyer faced, how he “solved” his conundrum, and what he learned about human nature in the process. When combined with writing about the passage, students will learn to appreciate how Twain’s humor contains a deeper message and to derive satisfaction from struggling to master complex text.

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

In this lesson students will begin to look at the NYS Grade 6–8 Expository Writing Evaluation rubric, which will be used to assess the drafts and final copies of their essays.

In this lesson students analyze the model essay to learn about how details are used to support a claim.

In this lesson students begin to select evidence for supporting the claim in their essays in order to plan the body paragraphs for their essays.

In this lesson students complete the first part of their end of unit assessment by writing their planned body paragraphs.

In this lesson students complete the next part of their end of unit assessment by writing their introduction and conclusion paragraphs for their literary analysis.

In this lesson students complete their end of unit assessment by revising their literary analysis essays based on teacher feedback.

This lesson begins a series of three lessons. Students build their understanding of slavery, abolition, and the life of Douglass and hold these ideas on an anchor chart.

In this lesson, students continue to analyze informational texts and cite evidence to support their analysis.

In this lesson, students reflect on their growth as writers over the course of the year using their Writing Improvement Trackers.

This lesson begins the scaffolding toward writing a draft of the position paper, a type of argument essay that will be the Mid-Unit 3 Assessment in Lesson 5. Students must be able to write a clear and coherent position paper. Being able to share their understanding of the arguments they read about in Unit 2 and creating an argument that supports claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence are important skills.

In this lesson, students participate in an independent reading check-in using whichever routine you have established with your class.