PBS
Analyzing Stop and Frisk Through Personal Stories and Infographics
How much can you learn about an important topic from a single image? High schoolers analyze an infographic that represents the number of stops performed during the Stop and Frisk police procedure. After building background information...
Curated OER
Sherlock Holmes: Teaching English Through Detective Fiction
Middle schoolers read examples of mysteries and detective fiction. With a focus on Sherlock Holmes, they are introduced to the techniques for reading properly. In groups, they define new vocabulary, make predictions and summarize the...
Curated OER
A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories About Love
Students read an article about teenage pregnancy and the story, "A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories About Love," making notes about how the pregnant teens are characterized. They then compare and contrast the views of pregnant teens in...
Curated OER
Teaching Fluency Using Readers Theatre
Third graders listen as their teacher reads them a book. In groups, they are given a story and time to practice a skit. After taking suggestions from their teacher, they perform their skit and receive feedback from the class. They can...
Curated OER
Fun with Summarizing
Students practice summarization by creating a story map. After reading Freckle Juice, students working in groups, create a story map of the main events of the story. Groups use their story maps to summarize a chapter of the story and...
Curated OER
Read and Remember - Story Grammar
Students use the Story Grammar strategy to outline the main elements of the story which will help them with free recall and cued recall. The strategy includes: identifying the main characters in the story, recalling where and when the...
Curated OER
Children's Book Creations
Learners create a children's book version of the Japanese folk story "Momotaro Boy of the Peach" and present the story to elementary students. In this children's book lesson, learners design their book to explain Japanese culture to...
Curated OER
Writing Up a Spanish Storm: Using Creative Thinking for Creative Writing
Students in a Spanish class are introduced to the techniques of creative writing. In groups, they focus on the pre-writing section of creative writing and keep a folder of their works throughout the lesson. They end the lessons by...
Curated OER
The Wright Stuff
In this lesson, students design an exhibition on the history of aviation for a science museum. For homework, they write short stories envisioning the future of flight in the year 2014.
Curated OER
The Human Organism
Learners identify their feelings and learn constructive ways of handling conflict. For this human mental health lesson, students identify their feelings, learn how to tell others about their feelings, and learn how to resolve conflict....
Curated OER
Context Clues, Plot Structure, Conflict, and Personal Narrative Essay
What are the elements of a personal narrative? Get your class talking by reading "The Necklace" and "A Dangerous Game." The lesson focuses primarily on defining certain vocabulary terms (like context clues, plot, conflict, climax, etc.)...
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...
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
It’s Greek to Me: Greek Mythology
It's no myth: this packet on Greek mythology is an excellent addition to your social studies curriculum. With writing activities, such as short answer responses and biopoems, and reading activities, which include creation stories and...
Curated OER
Keep It Short!
Students examine the process of summarizing text. They participate in a class discussion, and read an assigned passage from their textbook, highlighting the main points of the text. Students then write a short summary of their...
Curated OER
Cinderella: A Story Found in Many Cultures
First graders explore, discuss and examine fairy-tale and make-believe stories. They assess two different types of Cinderella stories to surface a broader look at cultural diversity. Students construct a Venn Diagram or a chart of the...
Curated OER
The Five Human Values and The Five Teaching Components
Students explore the value of truth. They discuss a quotation about truth and its purpose in making decisions in life situations. They consider how truth relates to who they are, their purpose in life and how they can live fully. They...
Curated OER
Dracula: Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)
“There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night.” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest,” which may or may not have been the first chapter of the original Dracula manuscript, is the focus of a Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA).
Curated OER
The ABC's of the Three Little Pigs
Writers use varied sentence patterns. They listen to the story of Cinderella rewritten so that each sentence starts with the next letter of the alphabet. They create their own version of The Three Little Pigs using the same concept.
Scholastic
Ruby Bridges: A Simple Act of Courage, Grades 3-5
Through character trait graphic organizers, a vocabulary sorting activity, class discussion, and a civil rights movement slide show, your young historians will be introduced to the amazing story of Ruby Bridges and her experiences as the...
Curated OER
Quotation Response Speech: Public Speaking Skills
Improve high schoolers' public speaking with an engaging activity. Class members select three personally relevant quotes from a list. They then write a short speech for each quote, explaining how the quotes are personally relevant. The...
Scholastic
Abe Lincoln Remembers Lesson Plan
Discover the life of Abraham Lincoln with help from the story Abe Lincoln Remembers by Ann Turner. After listening carefully, scholars reflect on what they deem as Lincoln's most influential life event and how it relates to them,...
Curated OER
Traditional Values vs. Modern Culture in the Asian Community
Students examine Chinese culture and values. They research the teachings of Confucius, create posters, write short stories, and analyze the history of and present state of gang culture through research, discussion, and writing.
Curated OER
Cook-A-Doodle Doo! Lesson Plan
Students enjoy the excitement in the short story, Cook-A-Doodle-Doo! In this Cook-A-Doodle Doo! lesson plan, students work to tell the difference between fact and fiction, learn vocabulary, and compare and contrast different stories.
Curated OER
Collaborative Writing
Collaborative writing projects can be a lot of fun for students. They use a Scholastic Story Starter and the class blog to write a creative story containing basic story elements. The web link to Scholastic is included but non of the...