EngageNY
Establishing Routines for Discussing A Long Walk to Water (Chapter 6)
Middle schoolers use a reader's dictionary to locate words they do not know in chapter 6 of A Long Walk to Water. They then turn attention to gist and work on a Salva/Nya anchor chart to record what happens to the characters. Finally,...
Curated OER
Vocabulary Dictionary Drill
Investigate vocabulary terms related to communities. First your class generates a list of vocabulary terms related to the study of communities. Working in small groups, they compete in a dictionary drill to discover the meaning of the...
Curated OER
Transportation Lesson
Young scholars practice using transportation vocabulary in a foreign language. In this language arts lesson, students utilize the vocabulary terms for locations in order to give directions and find a specific place. Young scholars...
Curated OER
A Way with Words or Say What?
Students examine Shakespearean language. In this word study lesson, students investigate the meaning of words that Shakespeare invented. Students draw and pantomime with the words prior to writing short stories that feature Shakespeare's...
Curated OER
Choosing Words Carefully
Use literacy tools to select precise vocabulary. High schoolers respond to discussion questions that require them to consider the denotation and connotation of words. They then read non-fiction passages and identify words in the passages...
Curated OER
Wrapping It Up
Class members develop their own glossaries for unfamiliar words in each chapter in Elizabeth George Speare’s The Sign of the Beaver. After recording the word, the page number on which the word appears, and its part of speech, they...
Curated OER
Writing History: From Students to Scholars
An Online NewsHour article about scholarly ethics launches this study of plagiarism. Since historians are supposed to bring original ideas and perspectives to their publications, they must give credit to the ideas of others. After a...
Curated OER
The Tell-Tale Hearts of Writers
Knock, knock, knock...Creep out your class with a critical thinking lesson focused on word relationships in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." They investigate the relationship between word choice, mood, and interpretation of a...
Curated OER
The Poetics of Hip Hop
The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...
Curated OER
Colossal Squid Caught in Antarctic
Students define the word colossal, then read a news article about an enormous squid caught off Antarctica. In this animal studies and current events lesson, the teacher introduces the article with dictionary and vocabulary activities,...
Curated OER
Seeing Words in a New Way
What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...
Curated OER
Vocabulary Building
Use primary text documents to learn word roots. Learners listen to a reading of the Declaration of Independence and highlight words they don't know. They compile these words and guess their meanings. They discuss roots, prefixes,...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Advanced Phonics: Morpheme Structures, Compound Construction
A phonics lesson focuses on morpheme structures—compound words. Pairs choose letter cards, identify a compound word that starts with that letter and write it on a whiteboard. Extension opportunities include additional practice pages.
Learning to Give
Your Place in the Community
Learners identify their beliefs and values and compare how these values relate to those of their community. They then determine how their values affect the roles they play in different situations. A quiz about values and beliefs...
Curated OER
Cooking in Britain Today
Learners explore British cooking vocabulary. In this ELL vocabulary activity, students identify and describe various foods, match foods with adjectives, discuss their opinions about British cuisine, then read food critic reviews. Four...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Byzantine Architecture
View Byzantine architecture from the comfort of your classroom. A PowerPoint presentation introduces important vocabulary terms and examples of Byzantine architecture in the ninth lesson plan of the 11-part series. A Jeopardy game...
Curated OER
Mythological Word Origins
No wonder the ship was called the Titanic. An investigation of Norse, Roman, and Greek Mythology provides insight into mythological characters and corresponding words in the English language. A close look at roots, prefixes, and suffixes...
Curated OER
State Parks: A Spanish Vocabulary Lesson
Ninth graders create a PowerPoint about state parks using Spanish vocabulary. In this Spanish lesson, 9th graders work in groups to research about area recreational facilities. Students use information collected on-line to create and...
Curated OER
Spelling Lesson Plan
Review basic spelling rules with your elementary schoolers. Focus in on the spelling of words with a specific prefix. In this spelling lesson, learners use an interactive whiteboard lesson to learn prefixes such as de, sub, re, and pre....
Curated OER
My Daily Routine
Foreign language learners work in pairs to translate the daily routine of celebrities or everyday people, presented in daily planner format, into English. They then illustrate and record their own daily routines in storyboard (film...
Amazon Web Services
Idiom Dictionary
Examining idioms is a peace of cake when using this graphic organizer! Here, grammarians identify an idiom and use it in a sentence. Then they investigate its literal meaning versus its figurative meaning, and accompany each one with a...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Vocabulary: Word Meaning, All For One
Given a deck of cards with different words printed, pairs draw cards and work together to locate definitions for each multiple-meaning word. Learners complete a worksheet that challenges them to write the word, two of its definitions,...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Vocabulary: Word Meaning, Word Wrap
Support young learners' acquisition of new vocabulary with this pair of graphic organizers. Using context clues and reference materials, children complete each section of the activity, including the definition, synonyms, examples and...
Shodor Education Foundation
Triangle Area
While the lesson focuses on right triangles, this activity offers a great way to practice the area of all triangles through an interactive webpage. The activity begins with the class taking a square paper and cutting in in half; can they...