Curated OER
Water Everywhere: Is There Enough to Drink?
Young scholars examine water supply issues caused by population growth and land use. They read and discuss an article, develop a water usage trivia game, write a news article, illustrate a desalination process, and research aquifer systems.
Curated OER
Coal Mine Industrial Picture Analysis
Students observe coal mine pictures. In this US history lesson, students analyze the pictures realizing that history is shown in pictures and then write a newspaper article about life in a coal town using the pictures as...
Curated OER
Health Grade 5
Fifth graders understand conflict and how to solve them. In this lesson about conflict resolution, 5th graders explore different factors that cause conflict. Students are put into groups and develop a list of examples for a specific kind...
Curated OER
Japanese Internment
Fourth graders practice their writing skills. In this reading comprehension instructional activity, 4th graders review baseball terminology and then read Baseball Saved Us. In this story students learn about Japanese Americans that...
Curated OER
Who, What, Where, When, Why, How
Students take a closer look at the organization of news stories. In this journalism lesson, students identify the elements of news stories and then write their news stories on the same topics using different types of leads.
Curated OER
Labor Day Newspaper
Learners examine the history of the Labor Day holiday and write a newspaper article about it. They practice using new vocabulary words and discover the layout of a newspaper.
Curated OER
Pearl Harbor
High schoolers consider the impact of the attack on Pearl Harbor. In this World War II lesson, students research print and electronic sources about the attack on Pearl Harbor and then write news article about the attack from an American...
Curated OER
The Furry News: How to Make a Newspaper
Students investigate the process of making a newspaper using children's literature to create context for the instructional activity. The readers are asked to predict the events of the story as it is read to them. Then the teacher uses...
Curated OER
Zhu Zhu
Students read an article about the toy Zhu Zhu and answer comprehension questions about it. In this toy lesson plan, students also create an ad for a new toy that they invent in groups.
Curated OER
Idea-Noun Definition: Source Searching
A great idea for showing language arts pupils the universality of themes, even in the real world! Have class members choose an idea-noun (peace, justice, war, love, etc.) at the beginning of the year or semester. They complete weekly...
Curated OER
In The News
Students investigate the life of Amelia Earhart and conduct research using a variety of resources including Scholastic.com. Then they take the information and write a newspaper article. The entire process of writing is completed...
Curated OER
Writing a press release
Students scan through a selection of newspapers or online stories from the Newsround website and chose one story each. They use the top TWO paragraphs of the story to complete the grid of the four W's.
Curated OER
We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution: The American Revolution
The contributions of African-Americans to the American Revolution are the focus of this Social Studies and language arts lesson. After reading and discussing Linda Crotta Brennan’s The Black Regiment of the American Revolution, class...
Curated OER
Revised: Adventures in Earth Day: Why Do We Care About Our Environment? - Biology Teaching Thesis
To describe the ecological and aesthetic importance of the Potomac River, Middle schoolers name the ways in which the river's values are jeopardized and explain the purpose of Earth Day. They write a response to a newspaper article in a...
Curated OER
Fire Fight
While somewhat dated (high schoolers write letters to President George W. Bush about the Iraq War), this lesson plan could be a good way to reinforce rhetorical reading and critical thinking. Students examine information regarding...
Curated OER
Propaganda
How does word choice affect the reading of a text? Compare two headlines that were written about the same event. Is one biased? Discuss how word choice often reveals the author's feelings about a topic. Then look at different techniques...
Curated OER
Dangerous Roads in Your Community
Students collect information about dangerous streets and intersections in community, interview law enforcement officials and safety experts to find out what they think can be done to reduce accidents, write in-depth article using these...
Curated OER
In Cold Blood: A During Reading Activity
Following the method used by Truman Capote, class members research a major character from his novel, In Cold Blood, and then conduct an interview with that character. The resulting research is used to craft a newspaper article about the...
Curated OER
Encouraging Students to Embrace Their Inner Author
Everyone is a writer! Youngsters compose an original piece of writing. In this writing lesson, they come up with their own idea for a piece of writing, revise it, and then publish it with illustrations. This lesson includes three...
Curated OER
Dante's Peak Movie Review
Middle or high school volcanologists watch the 1997 film, Dante's Peak. They make observations as they watch and then write a movie review, focusing on what was accurately represented. They also point out what facts were stretched by...
Curated OER
About Life: The Photographs of Dorothea Lange Going to the Promised Land
To better understand the migrant experience during the Great Depression, pupils analyze two primary resources: photographs by Dorothea Lange and a U.S. Map that shows the Dust Bowl. They compare and contrast Lange's images to Steinbeck's...
The New York Times
Understanding the Mathematics of the Fiscal Cliff
What exactly is the fiscal cliff? What are the effects of changing income tax rates and payroll tax rates? Your learners will begin by reading news articles and examining graphs illustrating the "Bush tax cuts" of 2001 and 2003. They...
Curated OER
Parents And Alcohol: Who's To Blame
Students explore the topic of underage drinking. They find a focus and write a news feature/analysis that reports on what the community is doing to prevent underage drinking and some assessment of the extent of the problem.
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2, Unit 3, Lesson 1
"True-crime stories, murder mysteries, up-to-the-minute online news reports, and (as always) rumor and innuendo grab our attention faster than any call for justice, human rights, or ceasefires." Or so says Walter Mosley in his Newsweek...