Curated OER
A Positive Spin
Study word choice and connotation in advertising. Readers examine campaign ads, both negative and positive, from the 2006 mid-term election before discussing an article and analyze a campaign of any candidate they choose. Finally,...
Curated OER
Vocabulary Building
A fabulous language arts instructional activity has readers focus on the vocabulary in the key words, expand and build new vocabulary, and practice three grammar concepts. They recognize key words as they relate to communicating at work....
University of Arkansas
Our Responsibilities
The fourth in a five-activity unit examining human rights and personal responsibility asks class groups to investigate a current rights issue, and using the provided graphic organizer, summarize the issue, consider which rights are being...
Curated OER
City, County, Community
Students explore issues and situations that make for a city and its local environments. In this local government lesson, students design maps, define issues and create brochures that illustrate their understandings of these concepts and...
Curated OER
Time of Slavery
Young historians learn about abolitionists, The Civil War, Frederick Douglas, and so many more details about slavery in this highly engaging presentation. Teachers could use this as a whole class review and discussion tool.
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
I Need a Superhero
Once the class learns about the hero's journey, they'll find it in every story and movie they see! Take characters from their humble beginnings to their atonement and apotheosis with a set of lessons about the hero's journey...
PBS
WWII: Detained
Imagine being forced against your will behind barbed wire for doing nothing but being yourself. Scholars investigate the impact Japanese-American internment camps had during World War II. Through video and archival evidence, they create...
PBS
The Media and the War: The Penny Press, Walt Whitman and the War
The Mexican-American war marked a significant moment in United States history, as well as in the history of American media. The mid-nineteenth century saw the introduction of the Penny Press, which provided many American citizens with...
Curated OER
To Quote or Not to Quote
Quotation marks are the focus of this resource. In it, youngsters discover how to correctly use punctuation marks. It is meant to be carried out over a three-day period. You could shorten it, but I wouldn't. The activities are...
Curated OER
Twenty-Five Great Ideas for Teaching Current Events
Teaching current events can be an amazingly-rewarding part of your teaching week. This resource presents twenty-five ways to incorporate current events into your curriculum. It offers some outstanding ideas, such as providing your...
Federal Trade Commission
Ad Awareness
Movie theaters, shopping malls, television, the Internet ... no matter where people go, they are inundated with advertisements. Scholars discuss the topic of ad awareness using the first of four Admongo lessons about advertising. Pupils...
Ellsworth American
Think About the Newspaper
Investigate the significance of adjectives with a newspaper activity that addresses effective language. Readers probe teacher-provided articles in search of the mighty modifiers, and practice by replacing them with a different word, and...
Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, University of Texas at Austin
Lesson 9 - Contractions
Is it do'nt or don't? How about doesn't or does'nt? A lesson on contractions helps learners identify, form, and use contractions. Components within the plan include direct instruction on decoding and encoding contractions, as well as...
Curated OER
Cinderella Around the World
Fourth graders compare and contrast different versions of the fairy tale of "Cinderella" around the World. They find the difference and similarities of the different versions that exist of Cinderella fairy tales.
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
Tea Overboard
While less well known than the event in Boston, the Yorktown Tea Party was equally decisive in turning community sentiment against Great Britain. To gain an understanding of why the colonists objected to the Tea Act, young historians...
Curated OER
Day to Day Life in a Small African Village
Students analyze what it is like to live in an African village. They locate Tanzania on a map and compare life there to life here in the United States. They write about the health issues in East Africa.
Curated OER
Graph It!
There is more than one way to represent data! Learners explore ways to represent data. They examine stacked graphs, histograms, and line plots. They conduct surveys and use stacked graphs, histograms, or line plots to chart the data they...
Curated OER
New Gun Control Politics: A Whimper, Not a Bang
Using an article from The New York Times, learners 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...
Curated OER
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,...
Stanford University
Explosion of the Maine
An intriguing lesson plan features newspaper articles to help academics understand the political impact of the sinking the Maine and how the American media depicted the event. Scholars also view a presentation, participate in group...
Curated OER
Miss America
The first part of this article by PBS on the Miss America pageants can be used in a health class when it's time to talk about body image. There are links to related articles. There are some great questions for discussion. There are ideas...
Curated OER
Exploring US Foreign Policy after WWII--The Cold War
Scholars explore U.S. Foreign Policy and Cold War ideologies adopted after WWII. They conduct Internet research on a topic or issue related to the Cold War Era, watch two films, and compose a time line and a multimedia presentation to...