This autobiographical piece tells what a neat, tidy rule-follower this author was in his youth—except for his yo-yo. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students will write their introduction and conclusion to their A Long Walk to Water literary analysis paper.

Students will have an opportunity to develop such "live interviews" with ancient athletes; working in small groups, they will produce a script based on the results of their research and they will perform the interview for other students in the class.

In this lesson students examine how imagery is used to represent ideas, themes, periods of history, and make cultural connections to poem, "Still I Rise." Students will reflect through written expression how resiliency is in their lives, school, and community.

The emphasis of this lesson is on history and research rather than literature, selections from Jack London's The Call of the Wild are used to provide focus and structure for students' research in online databases of primary sources, and to serve as models of vivid narrative prose for students' own stories.

This lesson plan uses graphic organizers to help students create podcasts/ radio broadcasts using a Natural Inquirer article.

Students will compose a thank you note using the following RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) model.

In this lesson, students will dissect a Times column about the leadership styles of former Vice President (and Nobel Laureate) Al Gore and President George W. Bush and then write their own opinion editorial on presidential leadership.

This activity will set up a series of experiments that will help students identify and find physical properties of water. A discussion of what the students know (or believe they know about water) will start this activity. Once the properties are discussed, methods of testing these properties will be discussed by the instructor, leading the students into the students' development of these labs.

The students will read and reread the passage closely, and focusing their reading through either a series of questions and discussion about the text or the structured journal approach outlined here, students will come away with a working knowledge of the digestive system, its parts, and how they function together.

In this lesson, students learn about proverbs: how they work, how they differ from cliches, how to interpret them, and how they can be culturally and personally significant. Students begin by talking about proverbs, interview family and friends to find proverbs that were not discussed in class, and figuring out the meaning of proverbs by creating a new definition of proverbs based on what they've learned.

In this lesson, students work with proverbs from home and from around the world, exploring how these maxims are tied to a culture’s values and everyday experience. Students first discuss how proverbs convey cultural knowledge and values, as well as how proverbs from other cultures are similar to and different from American proverbs. Next, students share family proverbs and explain their significance. Finally, they select one or two proverbs and use art materials, PowerPoint, or a word processor to create mini-posters that reflect the culture from which the proverbs originated.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 7th Grade English Language Arts.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 7th Grade ELA. 

In this lesson, students will examine the various social classes and learn about the critical role that slaves, freemen, and plebeians played in the day-to-day operations of the Roman Empire. Students will learn about the various social classes and the life experiences of people from these classes. As a final activity, students will complete a creative writing assignment that addresses how the Roman class system and the use of slavery may have ultimately contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire. Video link: http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/index.html - Go to For Educators and follow links to free video clips. The Slaves and Freemen link is broken. Use this: http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/slaves_freemen.html

In this lesson, students produce a classroom documentary about important historical figures from the Roman Empire. They will also create posters to be part of a classroom timeline showing when each of these people lived and their impact on the empire. As a final activity, students will apply what they have learned by discussing how these ancient Romans have impacted world history and continue to influence us today. Video link: http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/index.html. Go to For Educators and follow links to free video clips. Includes extension activities.

Students will use scaffolding to research and organize information for writing a research paper. A research paper scaffold provides students with clear support for writing expository papers that include a question (problem), literature review, analysis, methodology for original research, results, conclusion, and references. Students examine informational text, use an inquiry-based approach, and practice genre-specific strategies for expository writing.

Students will investigate how different variables (such as type of seed, growth medium, amount of water, amount of light, and temperature) affect seed growth. The activity is designed to take students approximately 10 hours over a 2-week period.

In this lesson, students will learn about the geography and topography of China and surrounding countries, discover how ideas, cultures, and goods were exchanged through the Silk Road, relate the ideas of trade and globalization to today, and then write a travel journal entry as if they were a participant in trade along the Silk Road.

Students are asked the question, "What do we need to do to prevent or control an outbreak of yellow fever at our school if it occurred today?" Students will work in small collaborative groups to examine the problem of epidemics in past and modern times. Students will develop their own public health policy that reflects the challenges of a modern day outbreak of yellow fever at school. Students will present their findings in the form of a written letter/report and multimedia presentation to the class and to the Principal. This lesson utilizes documents from the North Carolina State Government Publications Collection.