Google
Storytelling: Your Innovation Story
Explore a trailblazing way to talk about innovation. Using the Scratch coding program, young computer scientists create innovations and write stories to accompany them. They include some of the add-ons they mastered throughout the unit.
Curated OER
A Year (a Day or a Week) In My Life as a Shorebird
Students describe the basic life history of one shorebird common to their area. They use the writing process which includes brainstorming, rough draft writing, peer editing, and re-writing to create a factually and grammatically...
Curated OER
How to Locate and Evaluate Information, Part III - Internet Sites
This is the third in a series of lessons scaffolding the research paper. It purports to teach researchers how to evaluate internet sites, but the lack of links, specific criteria, or site evaluation rubrics would require additional...
Curated OER
Creating Compassionate Communities
Have you ever lost someone? Middle and high school learners journal about a time they experienced the loss of someone through death, divorce, moving, or another type of change. They share their responses and discuss an article relating...
Center for History Education
U.S. Foreign Policy and the Iran-Contra Affair: Was Oliver North a Patriot, a Pawn, or an Outlaw?
If you had to write a song about Oliver North, would it be a ballad or a dirge? If you had to put him on a trading card, would he be a hero or the bad guy? Young historians decide for themselves after examining documents from the...
Curated OER
How to Score in the Word Series
Pupils examine an object in the classroom and write a description of it employing exciting language. They brainstorm and outline ideas for an original article about an event they participated in or attended.
Curated OER
Ideas for Teaching Creative Poetry
Students read and write a variety of forms of poetry and create an original page for a class "I Spy" book. They read and discuss the form of poetry used in the "I Spy" books, and conduct Internet research on how the "I Spy" books are...
Curated OER
Martin's Writing Model
Students use digital resources to learn about the life of Ann M. Martin, her writing process, and how she develops story ideas. They record notes and observations that might be useful in developing characters and a storyline for a...
Curated OER
Dedication to Douglass
Students study the controversy surrounding the proposed Frederick Douglass Circle monument in Central Park. They review the notion of historical inaccuracy by reading and discussing the article, "In Douglass Tribute, Slave Folklore and...
Curated OER
Overture to 'William Tell' by Gioacchino Rossini
Students create an awareness of how music creates a setting in a story or legend. They identify the instrumentation, dynamics and tempo used to create various settings for a musical story. They perform rhythmic patterns from listening...
Curated OER
Classical Period: Understanding Four-Bar Sequences
Her is an interesting topic, as well as a great way to teach it! You'll find two worksheets on this link, one for the teacher, and one for the learner. Worksheet one describes how classical composers used musical repetition to make their...
Curated OER
Travel Diary
Darwin kept a travel diary as he voyaged to South America, noting the politics, geography, cultures, animals, and interesting facts he encountered. Your class will do the same. Each student chooses a country to research and keep a five...
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The News Behind the Story
What a fun way to analyze plot, setting, and character. Learners review story elements, read a short fictional story, then turn the events of that story into a headlining news paper article. Not only does this instructional activity...
Curated OER
A Pill with a View
Young scholars brainstorm a list of potential uses for micro-video technologies. After reading an article, they analyze the development of a new pill-sized camera. In groups, they create a children's book that shows them the various...
Louisiana Department of Education
Fahrenheit 451
In his 2013 introduction to Fahrenheit 451, Neil Gaiman states, “Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” In this extraordinary unit plan, readers "explore the power of written language to educate and...
Novelinks
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter: Vocabulary List
A staggering amount of work went into compiling this vocabulary resource for Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. The overview provides a rationale for the strategy and information about tier 1, 2, and 3 words. The...
Curated OER
Creative Writing Lesson Plan
Pupils practice recognizing the elements needed to produce a piece of creative writing and become aware of those elements in their own original pieces of writings. In groups, they creatively write a new story utilizing all the major...
Curated OER
Poetry Gifts
What kind of shoe is this person? What time of day is this person? Aspiring poets’ responses to a list of questions provide descriptive words and phrases that can be crafted into a blank verse poem. A link to sample poems is provided.
Novelinks
The Cure: Guided Imagery
Prepare class members for a discussion of Sonia Levitin's dystopian novel The Cure, by leading them on a guided imagery exercise designed to encourage visualization of written descriptions.
Curated OER
Writing Prompt "Living With Fame"
Fourth graders practice their creative writing skills by describing fame. In this writing prompt lesson, 4th graders identify fame and how their life would be dramatically different if they were wildly famous. Students...
Curated OER
You Are What You Wear
Students, after analyzing interactions between groups/societies, effects of causality/change over time, forms of imaginative writing and utilizing art media to conveying messages/meaning, examine the relationship between clothing and...
Curated OER
Inspire Your Heart With Art Day
In this Inspire Your Heart With Art Day worksheet, students complete activities including reading a passage, matching phrases, fill in the blanks, correct word choosing, multiple choice, sequencing, unscramble the sentences, write...
Curated OER
I Spy Poetry
Students identify and interpret the rhythm and form of the I Spy poem.
They then integrate art, music, literature, technology, and writing with poetry. Students also write their own poem based on the picture they printed from the I Spy...
Curated OER
Mother Language Day
In this Mother Language Day worksheet, students complete activities such as reading a passage, matching phrases, fill in the blanks, choose the correct word, multiple choice, unscramble the words, sequencing, unscramble the sentences,...