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Student Newspaper Project
Writing teaches us so much. One can identify the many characteristics of a newspaper, use the Internet to gather information, and communicate with others. Primary students create a class newspaper for publishing and dispersal.
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Getting Started: Pre-Writing Techniques
Pre-writing activities are covered to help your students examine topics and personal experiences. Your class will discover how to choose topics which create a strong piece of writing and incorporate personal knowledge.
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On the Cutting Edge
Introduce the background of design and designers and their role in communicating their thoughts to others. In groups, you can assign participation in a writing cluster on various designers and write paragraphs to submit to magazines. To...
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A Tale of Two Schools
Students create different photographs using photographic techniques of camera angles, lighting, and composition. They write non-fiction stories about people they interview and create two school newsletters that portray a fictional...
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New Gun Control Politics: A Whimper, Not a Bang
Using an article from The New York Times, students answer discussion questions about gun control. They are divided into four groups to research different standpoints on gun control, including the Executive Office, Congress, Gun Control...
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Cite Your Sites!
The New York Times article “Lessons in Internet Plagiarism,” launches a look at how the Internet has increased the prevalence of plagiarism. The richly detailed lesson includes warm-up and wrap-up activities, discussion questions,...
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Are Gay Rights "Special"?
Inspire critical thinking with this activity, which prompts students to compare lesbian, gat, bisexual, and transgender rights with the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. By collecting topical articles about...
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Radio Program
High schoolers identify and assess the impact of unions on workers, management, and community. They listen to radio stories, students are asked what can they conclude about the impact of unions on the lives of the workers, management,...
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Come Fly with Me . . . Open a Book: Travels through Literature
This detailed overview of a curriculum unit suggests using travel literature to engage and stimulate your third graders’ interest in reading. The suggested reading list includes fiction and non-fiction materials and offers urban children...
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Great Expectations: Group Writing
Examine the differences between totalitarianism and democracy in this writing lesson plan. Using the same format and theme from Great Expectations, young writers work in pairs to compose their own short stories. They follow guidelines...
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Kids These Days!
Students create a scrapbook of college student life during the 1960's using digital archives and Internet research. They read and discuss the article "What's the Matter With College?" and then compare college experience of today with...
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The Economics of Information
Create an expert guide to local businesses in this lesson. Through research, young readers consider their local businesses and the services they provide, paying attention to any conflicting information they might find. Working in groups,...
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The Laundry News
In this reading worksheet, students answer 10 multiple-choice questions about the book. For example, "What happened to the very first edition of the Laundry News?"
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Olympic Report Planner
Use this worksheet to research a future or past olympian. There's a space for researchers to brainstorm things they'd like to know, a space for them to record notes, and a KWL chart. There's also an open space to write a cumulative...
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Skill Building: Alphabet Poem
Amateur poets explore alphabetical poetry. They choose a topic and brainstorm vocabulary that relates to the topic using each letter of the alphabet. The class then generates ideas for a group alphabet poem. After creating one as a whole...
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The Final Analysis: Cause and Effect, Fact and Opinion
Middle schoolers read and review informational texts, analyze cause and effect, and distinguish fact from opinion. They assess a "one-minute mystery" you read aloud for cause and effect relationships. Resource includes complete set of...
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An Era of Innovation
Research milestones from the past century. Transportation milestones have changed society, the economy, communication, and travel. Pupils research these changes in order to create a transportation exhibit showing the enhancements in...
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Conventions - Punctuation Research
Study unusual punctuation marks in this punctuation lesson. Young grammarians work in small groups to research one of the unusual punctuation marks (semi-colon, colon, dash, comma, ellipses, or quotation marks) and discuss how the mark...
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March 2, 1877: Hayes Declared Winner in Disputed Presidential Election
After reading an interesting article comparing the disputed presidential election of 1877 to a similar event in the year 2000, kids blog a response. They read the article, check out the embedded links, then respond to four related...
K12 Reader
Narrative or Expository?
Narrative or expository? That is the question readers face on a two-part comprehension worksheet that asks kids to read a short passage about these two different types of writing, and then to answer a series of comprehension questions...
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Gender Roles: Exposing Stereotypes
A series of activities help middle- and high-schoolers identify and explore gender stereotypes and how they can lead to violence and abuse. Use think-pair-share to activate whole class brainstorming about what it means to "be a man" and...
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News Journalism Across the Media: Introduction
Although students are aware of news as information that influences their perceptions of the world, they are often unaware of the various ways to present that information. Encourage them to investigate, discuss, analyze and make valuable...
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Easy Access: Creating Annotated Versions of News Articles
How can news coverage be made more accessible for teens? Model for your class how to use technology to annotate news stories containing unfamiliar references that hinder their interest in and understanding of a news story. Use the...
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Introduce Vocabulary: Firefighters (Mitten)
Your budding readers know what it's like to get to a word and think, "What does that mean?" Expand their vocabulary in context using Christopher Mitten's nonfiction picture book Firefighters. Get them ready by pre-teaching the new words...