This resource accompanies our Rethink 8th Grade ELA course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 8th grade ELA content.

Students will research the life of an African American poet using print and online resources. Afterwards, students present their findings by writing a research paper and creating a PowerPoint presentation.

This lesson was designed to help students gain social studies/history content knowledge by using textual evidence to answer text-dependent questions.In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this middle school lesson from Teaching Tolerance, students will explore the calendar to determine why different religions celebrate different holidays and establish what factors school and government leaders should consider when deciding whether public schools should be closed for religious holidays. Students will work in groups to create solutions for school calendars that respect all students and beliefs.

These activities provide students with a way to explore the Christmas Truce of 1914 through multiple media. It lends itself to the exploration of many themes: War, Peace, Kindness, Globalism, Humanity. The discussion questions suggested here focus on the universality of the human experience. Although it uses a picture book as the anchor text, the activities could be used in middle and high school as well. The timing is flexible depending on the use of the discussion questions and how many tasks you choose to do.

Students begin by brainstorming a list of items that combine different ways of expressing ideas—such as a poster or DVD. After the lists are shared, list items are identified as texts (audio texts, video texts, etc.) Students then create an inventory of significant texts that they have engaged with over a specified period of time, and discuss why it is important to interact with a variety of different types of texts. With this start, they create a working definition of literacy that they refine and explore as they continue their investigation of the texts that they interact with at home, at school, and in other settings.

Students will use the Clips app to create a video trailer that incorporates the central idea of the memoir "A Mighty Long Way" by using images from the picture book "Little Rock Girl 1957." Students will also choose a song that connects to the central idea.

Students move around the room to show their level of agreement or disagreement with a statement on a particular issue. Includes prompts and resources for discussion and debate.

This lesson will provide eighth grade students with an inquiry-based research project based on C.S. Lewis' classic, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Students will determine the author's purpose in writing this story. This will be accomplished by researching material using the Alabama Virtual Library and Gale Resources.

This lesson will last 2, 50 minute, class periods. Students will learn about various countries and their anthems through student presentations. As students listen to the presentations, they are to determine if there is a common theme as to why a country has an anthem. Students will keep up with a recording sheet to keep track of all presentations. This lesson was developed by Megon Mancini as part of their completion of the North Carolina Global Educator Digital Badge program. This lesson plan has been vetted at the local and state level for standards alignment, Global Education focus, and content accuracy.            

This lesson is intended to be used with the PBS FRONTLINE documentary "League of Denial" and supports students learning by contextualizing the concussion crisis in the NFL with background on concussions in youth.

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.

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.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade Math.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 8th Grade ELA. 

In this lesson, students view non-print campaign advertisements and analyze them for factual and persuasive information, then determine which advertisement is the most persuasive and share reasons to support their decisions with a peer.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a legend about King Arthur’s court and the Knights of the Round Table. During a New Years celebration, a strange man, only referred to as the Green Knight, enters the court and challenges the knights to a game. He will allow whoever accepts the challenge to strike him with his own ax. There is one condition, the challenger must return in one year for the Green Knight to return the same blow. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The wind and water are personified as two women talking about their children. Mrs. Wind brags about her children, which annoys Mrs. Water who drowns Mrs. Wind’s children when they come to her for a drink. As Mrs. Wind calls for her children, white feathers come to the top of the water, causing whitecaps. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.