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.

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.

In this three week unit on the novel The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, students examine and discuss the characteristics of a novel, compare and contrast the novel to folk tales and short stories, write chapter summaries and essays, and conduct Internet research to prepare slideshow presentations on related topics including those reflecting cultural differences of the novel's characters and those issues involving the economic principle of supply and demand.

In this lesson, students will use the steps of the writing process (brainstorming, drafting, revising, proofreading, and publishing) to write original and, in small groups, perform their fables as skits. Students will also review the elements of a fable, such as theme, in order to create original written fables of their own.