This study of Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau is designed to give students an understanding of the ideas of these four philosophers and is also an opportunity for them to reflect on humanity's need for order and efforts to create stability within the social community. In the first part of the unit, activities focus student awareness on the nature of government itself and then progress to close reading and writing centered on the specifics of each philosopher's views. Large-group and small-group discussion as well as textual evidence are emphasized throughout. In the second part of the unit, students are asked to engage in creative writing that has research as its foundation. Collaboration, role-playing, and a panel discussion
are fundamental parts of the culminating activity. Options for further writing activities and assessments close the unit.

When Ruth and her sister Lucille are abandoned in the isolated Idaho town of Fingerbone, their lives become intertwined with the legacy of loss that haunts the Foster family. The Big Read Reader's Guide deepens your exploration with interviews, booklists, timelines, and historical information. We hope this guide and syllabus allow you to have fun with your students while introducing them to the work of a great American author.

Students to read detailed scientific passages and explain how an understanding of specfifc icefish adaptations might lead to a treatment or cure for human disorders, such as osteoporosis and anemia.

This argumentative essay help sheet provides three different strategies for writing the argumentative essay: Claim/Counter Claim, The Cluster Format, and The Alternating Format.

Students analyze the work of winners of the Learning Network's 2014 Student Editorial Contest as well as professional models from the Times editorial pages to learn how writers effectively introduce and respond to counterarguments. Then they write their own position pieces, incorporating counterarguments to strengthen their claims.

Students will learn basic information about the Incan empire and its downfall through selected readings and discussion activities. Students will futher their understanding regarding the clash of Spanish and Incan society by creating newspapers detailing the events, people, and places during the Spanish conquest of the Incan Empire.

This literacy assessment includes an excerpt from an 1873 speech, seven text-dependent questions, one constructed response writing prompt, and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

In this lesson, students will evaluate the extent to which Andrew Jackson deserves to be celebrated as champion of democracy by selecting evidence to support one's assigned position. Students will complete a DBQ (document-based question) essay using the documents they select.

In this three-part lesson on the inner chapters of "The Grapes of Wrath" students will first determine the function of Steinbeck's opening chapter then explore the relationship between the inner chapters and the Joad narrative chapters throughout the novel. Students will view two documentaries along the way as well as read two relevant articles in order to draw their own conclusions about the purpose of this novel's inner chapters.

A teacher's guide for the novel Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, including journal prompts, discussion questions, and focused final project ideas.

Students discuss and examine the differences between electronic communication such as texts and emails versus more "traditional" means of writing. There is also a discussion on audience and puropse when writing, and students will practice writing a "style guide" page in order to reinforce conventions of standard English.

By examining King's famous essay in defense of nonviolent protest, along with two significant criticisms of his direct action campaign, this lesson will help students assess various alternatives for securing civil rights for black Americans in a self-governing society.

The Japanese conquest of Manchuria in 1931 was only the first step in what became a much larger campaign to create a pro-Japanese "buffer state" in North China. This lesson will examine the overall principles which underlay both Japanese and American foreign policy in the mid- to late-1930s.

In this lesson students will participate in a role-play activity that has them become members of a newspaper or magazine editorial board preparing a retrospective report about the NAACP's anti-lynching campaign of the 1930s.

In reviewing events, documentary evidence, and biographical information, students come to understand the complex nature of political decision-making in the United States. In this lesson, they consider the momentous questions facing the country during the Reconstruction debate by weighing the many factors that went into the solutions offered. Students also think critically as they consider whether and how other solutions might have played out.

Students will read about literacy narratives, read a published literacy narrative, and then create their own.  

This lesson revisits the original nine African-American children who broke the color barrier at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1954. Lessons include close reading and analysis of news reports, television news accounts and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students explore and understand the use of transition words in context and write their own persuasive essay using transition words.

Students read a case study and debate the pros and cons of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the region. Then they select a MPA and develop and present a management plan for it.

Students explore the topics of interpretation and intertextuality by investigating and creating texts and works of art inspired by other texts. Essential Question: How does meaning change through interpretation?