Students begin this multi-day lesson by reading letters to the editor in local, regional, or national newspapers, note common characteristics of the genre, and catagorize those characteristics. Next, they search to find news articles on topics that interest them. After choosing one on which to focus, students summarize the article, then use an online tool to write a letter to the editor. After peer editing them, students publish their letters and send.

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.

Students will watch and discuss video clips that show how two men in Chile coped with being prisoners in concentration camps during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Each student will then create a non-fiction picture book that tells the story of one of these men and provides historical context.

In this resource, students will learn how to organize their information into a research plan, using a checklist and guidelines.

In this lab activity, students will calculate their power requirement for climbing a staircase - both by walking and running. At the end of the activity, students will complete a formal lab write up.

Speech writing is a rhetorical art and provides the content for these scaffolded lessons that support the increased cognitive rigor of literacy standards with presidential writings.

This lesson is designed to assist students through multiple sessions with identifying relevant propaganda techniques in literature, discussing persuasive elements found in print and non-print media and composing a persuasive essay. Lesson is appropriate for use with a provided list of novels to include Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

Students are guided through how to use quotes and quotation marks when writing about a poem. A specific example is given using the poem "Fifteen" by William Stafford. Students are then given guided questions and directions to practice the technique using Sylvia Plath's "Mirror" as a sample text. The students are directed to use specficic textual evidence from the poem to discuss the poem's meaning and figurative language.

In this lesson, students will analyze an excerpt from Mary Rowlandson's The Captive: The True Story Of The Captivity Of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson Among The Indians. They then compare an excerpt of Shakespeare's The Tempest with Aimé Césaire's A Tempest in order to facilitate a postcolonial reading of Shakespeare. Students will arrive at an understanding of "the other" and will consider how canonical literature may position white characters in relation to those of different ethnicities.

Students read an article (which is included in this link) that asserts that all stories across time and medium can be put into one of seven models. Students will then search the newspapers and their own knowledge of books, film, television,etc. to compare and contrast with the nonfiction pieces as well as the article's theory about thematic connections. Any respected newspaper will suffice for this lesson.

This resource provides a lesson designed to guide a reading of The Scarlet Ibis. Students will complete a guided reading initially before rereading the text independently. The lesson provides guiding questions, vocabulary, as well as a culminating writing task.

This activity is an online scavenger hunt that will give students background information on William Shakespeare. Students search through several provided websites trying to find biographical background information on The Bard as an introduction to his life, times, and story.

This resource provides a lesson designed to provide students with a guide for reading and interpreting the text, Harrison Bergeron. Students will spend time analyzing the author's use of irony. The lesson provides a set of guided reading questions as well as a culminating writing activity.

In this selection of activities, students will continue to have questions about terrorism as our world is ever-changing. Of course, combatting terrorism is hard and uncertain, and this issue has become extremely politicized. We need to focus on terrorism rather than Muslims in general, and remember that terrorism is not a clash of civilizations between "the East" and "the West," but between the vast majority of humanity and the extremist few.

Exploring the use of style in literature helps students understand how language conveys mood, images, and meaning. After exploring the styles of two authors, students will translate passages from one author into the style of another. Then they will translate fables into style of one of the authors.

A teacher's guide to Aldous Huxley's, A Brave New World. Included are chapter-by-chapter discussion questions, writing prompts, and activities.

A teacher's guide to American Tapestry, Michelle Obama's biography. Included are chapter-by-chapter discussion questions, writing prompts, and activities.

A teacher's guide to Harper Lee's, Go Set A Watchman. Included are chapter-by-chapter discussion questions, writing prompts, and activities.

A comprehensive teacher's guide to Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. Included are chapter-by-chapter discussion questions, writing prompts, and activities.

A teaching guide for Harper Lee's classic To Kill A Mockingbird. Includes discussion questions, vocabulary, writing and discussion prompts and activities.