In this lesson, students read informational pieces about whether or not schools should teach cursive writing. They will evaluate the arguments presented and then choose a side of the issue. Finally, they will write their own arguments expressing their points of view.

In this lesson, students will be determining the central idea of a text about the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. They will also examine how quotes help to develop a central idea. Next, they will be writing an objective summary. Students will then research information from NASA about becoming an astronaut, as well as quotes that support why someone should become an astronaut. Finally, students will plan and write an argumentative essay about why someone should apply to become an astronaut using claims, evidence, and commentary. To enhance this lesson with a digital focus, instead of the traditional essay format in the origial plan, students can be given the choice of several digital mediums to present their findings. This digital foucs allows for student choice, selection and/or creation of visuals to support student thinking and arguments, and customization of content for the stuent's specific audience. 

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade Math.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 8th Grade ELA. 

Students examine the state of the print newspaper industry, then debate its future.

In this lesson, students examine the state of the print newspaper industry, then debate its future.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the genre of American tall tales. Students are exposed to several traditional tall tales, then prompted to write an original tall tale set in contemporary America. The tall tale must address a current event or issue and must feature a "larger-than-life" main character. The students use exaggeration and hyperbole to portray the way in which the main character resolves the issue or problem. Students then dramatize their tall tales for the class.

In this lesson, students will learn strategies and activities for learning about economics, civics and government, and U.S. history text through reading, taking notes, and composing a response about capitalism through a claims and evidence based approach.

In this video, students read a sample essay body paragraph and evaluate its supporting details to improve their own writing.

Students are presented with a paired critical reading activity uses excertps from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and a New York Times article "˜History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names"™ to exlplore the deep and painful history of racial injustice in the south. Included are close fiction/non-fiction analysis, varied media resources, and writing assignments.

In this resource from the New York Times, a paired critical reading activity uses excertps from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and a New York Times article ‘History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names’ to exlplore the deep and painful history of racial injustice in the south. Included are close fiction/non-fiction analysis, varied media resources, and writing assignments.

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.

This lesson from the New York Times offers suggestions for making TheTimes a low-stress part of your classroom routine, followed by literacy strategies to help address the Standards before, during, and after reading Times content with your students.

Suggestions for making TheTimes a low-stress part of your classroom routine, followed by literacy strategies to help address the Standards before, during, and after reading Times content with your students.

An interactive student resource in which students read and identify various types of advertisements and analyze advertisements for examples of persuasive writing, generalizing, exaggeration, and scare tactics.

These English Language Arts/Literacy Units empower students with critical reading and writing skills at the heart of the Common Core: analyzing and writing evidence-based arguments.

This unit develops students’ abilities to analyze arguments from a range of perspectives on immigration policy in the United States. Students also learn to develop, write and revise their own evidence-based arguments.

Students encounter the key concepts of intellectual property, learning the difference between copyright and trademark and coming to understand how these affect how media products are created and sold. The lesson uses the legal decision regarding the rights to the comic book hero Superman to help students understand the different ways in which intellectual properties can be owned, leased and sold. This is followed by a series of activities that ask students to explore the key ideas they"™ve learned and consider how intellectual property issues re relevant to them. As a summative activity, students hold a debate on intellectual property issues.

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.

Frederick Douglass, a freed slave, is asked to give a speech to a group of Americans on the 4th of July. Douglass uses the occasion to eloquently and forcefully address the hypocrisy of a nation celebrating freedom, while enslaving so many. With equal force, he strips bare the arguments for slavery, concluding with a call for radical action to end slavery in America. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history with text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students identify and analyze folktales. They learn the characteristics of folktales and use them to evaluate existing tales and to create original tales of their own. Students apply the writing process to strengthen writing skills and to develop creativity.