In this lesson, students work in cooperative groups to prepare presentations on business organization and Big Business during the second part of the Industrial Revolution (1860-1910) in the United States.

In this lesson, students select American authors to research, create timelines and biopoems, and then collaborate on teams to design and perform a panel presentation in which they role-play as their authors. The final project requires each student to synthesize information about his or her author in an essay.

This lesson is designed to help students prepare to read a historical novel. Students are required to complete research pertaining to the work's setting, time-period or decade. Afterwards, students use the online site and software, Prezi, to communicate and share their findings.

This extended lesson offers students a unique way to explore new books and think about the education process. They first participate in a "blind date" with a book - a quick reading of one small part of a novel - after which they are asked to rate it. Eventually, students choose a book to read and go on to debate whether their book should be added to the curriculum.

Students will explore the Supreme Court case Board of Education v. Earls, in which high school sophomore Lindsay Earls challenged her school's drug testing policy. Students will watch a documentary on the case, apply the Fourth Amendment to the case, and further their understanding by participation in activities such as creating an anti-drug campaign and a moot court or mock trial.

In this lesson, students assume the role of entertainment industry professionals responsible for marketing a selection of movies from the early Rock and Roll era. Following an examination of trailers, posters, newspaper articles, and the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, students will present to the class on the various stakeholders that helped shape the way Rock and Roll culture was introduced to mainstream movie audiences in the 1950s.

The subject of this lesson is the music of which Fats Domino speaks: the R&B of the pre-Rock and Roll era.

After reading a play, students create a resume for one of the characters. Students first discuss what they know about resumes, then select a character from the play to focus on. Next, they search online for historical background information. Using supporting details from the play, students then draft resumes for their characters and search a job listing site for which their character is qualitfied.

By mimicking popular websites that relate the plot of movies, television shows, and real life events in reverse, students have the opportunity to review the plot in a more creative and challenging fashion. Using a snowclone (a verbal formula that is changed for reuse), students complete the phrase "If you read ____ backwards, it's about ____" to comment on the plots of novels.

Teachers generally warn student writers to avoid sentence fragments but professional writers use sentence fragments effectively for a variety of reasons. Using Edgar Schuster's study of sentence fragments from "The Best American Essays," this lesson encourages students to examine fragments in action, determine their effective rhetorical uses, and reflect on their own uses of sentence fragments.

This introductory lesson provides materials for teachers to use while reading Ray Bradbury's classic novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, consisting of powerpoint presentations with important quotes from the chapters of the book.

This brochure assignment teaches how shifting purposes and audiences can create change in a student’s writing. After exploring published brochures, students determine key questions, research a topic and work through the writing process to create their own informative brochure complete with visuals.

In this resource, students will prepare to read an excerpt from The Wizard of Lies by listening to a recording of a review of the book.

In this lesson, students will confirm, negate, and build information about the nation’s changing demographic using an organizational chart; write a letter to respond to a viewpoint offered in the central text; and talk about their own multiple identities in relation to those around them.

In this activity, students will divide into two teams to conduct a mock trial based on The Ransom of Redchief by O. Henry.

In "Paradox and Dream," a 1966 essay on the American Dream, John Steinbeck writes, "For Americans too the wide and general dream has a name. It is called "the American Way of Life.' No one can define it or point to any one person or group who lives it, but it is very real nevertheless." Yet a recent cover of Time Magazine reads "The History of the American Dream " Is It Real?" Here, students explore the meaning of the American Dream by conducting interviews, sharing and assessing data, and writing papers based on their research to draw their own conclusions.

In this lesson students plan, write, illustrate, and publish their own children's picture books. First, students review illustrated children’s books to gain an understanding of the creative process and the elements that help make a children's book successful. Next, students use graphic organizers, peer feedback, and storyboards to brainstorm and create the relationship between the illustrations and text, as well as formalize character, setting, and conflict. Finally, students use a variety of methods to bind their books in an attractive manner and present their books to their peers.

Students are prompted to challenge their notion of synonyms being words that "mean the same" by investigating key words in Robert Frost's poem, "Choose Something Like a Star." First, they build an understanding of connotation and register by categorizing synonyms for the title word, "choose." Then they develop lists of synonyms for words of their choice elsewhere in the poem and collaborate on a full analysis, focusing on the relationship between word choice and the elements of speaker, subject, and tone.

When it comes to formal writing, most students choose passive voice constructions because to them, the verbs sound more academic or more formal. This minilesson explores verb choice in a variety of online resources then encourages students to draw conclusions about verb use. Then they explore the pieces they are writing, checking for active and passive voice, and make necessary revisions.

In this lesson on Oedipus the King, students will examine Oedipus's character and determine his opinion of whom to hold accountable for Laius's murder.