The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is an excellent example of many of the concepts the poets were addressing at the turn of the twentieth century. Poets were experimenting with poetic form and responding to the destruction that consumed the Lost Generation. In particular, Eliot incorporates the spirit of the Moderns through his stream of consciousness form and the allusions found in Prufrock’s interior monologue. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

During a science unit on animal life cycles, AIG students will write and publish short, alliterative poems about the stages of a selected animal's growth. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This project requires students to apply the use of an extended metaphor/allegory after completing a reading of Animal Farm. This resource provides reading review activities that prepare the students for the project. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Students will read aloud the book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simm Taback and will determine relationships among story events by using conjunctions such as the word because to signal and explain simple relationships. The students will discuss the events in the story using a story sequencing activity and will identify conjunctions in the text used in the sequence. The lesson is then extended to teach the students the creative thinking process of SCAMPERing, which will be used to further the study of conjunctions. This divergent thinking process will result in a product that has been changed from its initial state to something new and improved, different and unique. Student partners will illustrate their final product(s) and will explain their “scamperation” orally using conjunctions in their speech. An optional follow-up assignment is explained at the end. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy. 

On or near Earth Day, the AIG students will read the selected advanced text, then collaborate to plan and execute a conservation practice to benefit the community, and write personal narratives recounting their work. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

After the whole class science unit of study on sound, which includes biographical information about Helen Keller, the AIG students will select an additional famous person with a disability to research. They will engage in research and write a short biography of their selected notable person to be compiled in a class e-book. They will also increase their leadership and social skills through presenting to the whole class. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

In an effort to examine literature in a variety of ways, students will examine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun through a variety of critical lenses such as feminist, multicultural, Marxist, archetypal, and reader response. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This activity for gifted learners might serve as a writing activity as part of a larger unit focused on scientific and/or historical non-fiction texts. Students will take part in close readings of a variety of informational texts throughout the unit focusing on text structure, sequence of events, cause/effect, use of illustrations/photographs/diagrams/etc. In this activity, gifted learners will work independently to close read Boy Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs! By Kathleen Kudlinski.  Using evidence from the book, students will craft an opinion piece arguing that oftentimes (especially in science) “being wrong is actually right,” in other words…it’s a good thing. They will prove this using evidence from Boy Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs! and extend the idea to another area of science or history…such as early thoughts about the Earth, moon and sun, or another area of science/history in which they already have an intense interest. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

After whole group reading of two informational texts about banning junk food in schools with opposing points of view, the AIG students will form two groups to debate the current issue. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Students will examine the rhetoric and historical context of The Declaration of Independence as well as The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions from the Seneca Falls convention.  Afterwards, students will apply the same rhetorical techniques gleaned from these documents to address their own contemporary concern. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This extended task will be integrated with a second grade social studies unit on the contributions of historical figures. AIG students will research Leonardo da Vinci's futuristic inventions, and then work collaboratively to design original inventions for the future. Emphasis will be on inventions that will help solve a real-world problem or issue. They will write descriptive paragraphs about their invention and publish the finished product using a digital program. They will also build a model of their innovative creation. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Students will analyze one of Poe’s richest and most challenging works, The Fall of the House of Usher. They will gain an understanding of the construction of the work through focusing on the information revealed through the point of view of the narrator. After discussing the first five paragraphs of the work as a group, students can work independently to find other evidence to support the task. After the student(s) have had the opportunity to search the text for support, students can respond to a question that captures the goal of the lesson. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This activity for gifted learners might serve as a culminating activity as part of a larger poetry unit. Students will take part in close readings of a variety of poems throughout the unit. In this activity, gifted learners would work either individually or with a partner to close read “Autumn” by Emily Dickinson.  They will then work to decipher the poem and it’s meaning, resulting in an audio recording of the original poem and visual display to complement their knowledge/understanding of the poem. They will then create their own humorous adaptation of  “Autumn” by translating the poem into their own nonliteral language, slang, phrases with a newly “remastered” audio recording of the poem and visual display to complement their knowledge/understanding of the poem in their own words. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This lesson moves beyond typical character analysis lessons by asking students to identify reasonable occupations for characters based on the characters’ qualities as evidenced in the story. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This essay prompt can serve as a culmination of the study of Their Eyes Were Watching God. A thorough study of the text allows students to follow several motifs throughout the text like roads, fences and gates, horizons, and the stages of trees. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This lesson extends an independent or group reading of the novel Fahrenheit 451. Students are asked to consider what makes a piece of literature important and then select one particular text and defend its importance in a speech to their peers. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Students will read two similar versions of the same fairy tale, such as the traditional tale of The Three Little Pigs and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by John Scieszka.  Students will acknowledge differences in the points of view of the characters, including speaking in different voices of each character when reading dialogue. Students will use illustrations and details in the two versions to describe the characters, setting, events and plot through questioning and analysis. The product of the lesson will a graphic organizer used to compare and contrast the two different versions of this story.  This lesson fits into the larger context of examining different genres in literature, learning the elements of the particular genre and comparing and contrasting literature. This lesson would fit well into a unit on fairytales, folklore, myths etc. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This research task for gifted learners will extend classroom integrated instruction within a science unit on states of matter using close reading of informational texts and creation of a differentiated product. Students will connect the hands-on regular classroom instruction and demonstration of changes of water in a container before and after freezing with the effects of global warming on the melting of the polar ice cap. AIG students will choose from a menu of learning style-based tasks which include technology and collaborative learning experiences. Upon completion, they will give an oral presentation to the class. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

(This lesson for AIG learners follows a close reading of The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry.  The classroom lesson should include independent reading of the book as well as teacher read-aloud. Students should learn vocabulary from the book and should be able to demonstrate understanding of key details in the text and their central theme or lesson (interdependence, environmental awareness.)  This lesson could be part of a larger science unit encompassing the important role the rainforest plays in our environment.  In this lesson, the learner will find evidence in the text that shows cause and effect relationships, reasons in the text explicitly given to support a point and will produce a written work through a RAFT assignment. In this lesson extension, he or she can choose a specific role or voice to support a point or opinion. The RAFT assignment allows the learner to apply the text to the real world and a real audience. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This activity for gifted learners follows close reading of Bats: Creatures of the Night by Joyce Milton and the poem “A Bat is Born” by Randall Jarrell.  At the end of the reading of Bats: Creatures of the Night and “A Bat is Born,” all students will complete a Venn diagram that is differentiated based on readiness, using the two texts.  This activity should be assigned to students who not only demonstrate a solid understanding of the book and poem, but also show a keen ability to make connections between the big ideas presented texts.  Students will analyze the non-fiction and poetry pieces, with a special focus on the commonalities between bats & humans and the commonalities between the texts, as well.  This will culminate in the creation of a triple Venn diagram.  This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.