Curated OER
Dirty Thirties: The Dust Bowl
Middle schoolers explore the events and reactions surrounding the Dust Bowl crisis during the 1930's. They discuss how the events of the Great Depression affected America's democracy and how it transformed America.
Curated OER
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Haunted Houses"
Learners read and analyze Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Haunted Houses." They define key vocabulary terms, discuss the poem's technical aspects, and create an original poem about a haunted house or a haunted place.
Curated OER
Life Is a Journey
Students consider the literal and figurative definitions of the word journey. In this metaphor lesson, students discuss life journeys and their diversity.
Curated OER
Reading Paintings, Drawing Words
Students consider an art exhibit comprised of words that tell stories and create their own original pieces of art.
Curated OER
Character Education - Self Respect, Respect for Others
Students respond the story of Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes and discuss the ways in which she showed respect for herself and for others.
Curated OER
Latin American Colonial Diary
Young scholars examine the class systems of New Spain. In small groups, they create a five-day diary about the family life, food, occupation, and government involvement of an assigned personality from the time of Colonial Latin America.
Curated OER
The Election Process
Students examine how Electoral College works, compare and contrast candidates or issues, and discuss importance of becoming registered, active voting individuals.
Curated OER
Memory in Your World
Young scholars rotate through three classroom stations and identify similarities and differences between machines with and without memory, such as typewriters and computers, and illustrate how machines with memory fit into their world.
Curated OER
The Great Depression and Now: The Migrant Worker Experience
Pupils identify the concerns of people caught in desperate times during the Great Depression. They make connections between The Grapes of Wrath and historical images from the Great Depression. Students make connections between the...
Curated OER
Tessellations
Students identify shapes that will tessellate. They construct a tessellation using transformations. Students identify transformations in tessellations. They identify applications of transformations such as tiling and fabric design.
Curated OER
Defining American Culture Photographic Parallels
Students assess the diversity of the photographs taken by a Czech photographer, that illustrate how existed in 1920's Texas. Then students compare and contrast these photographs with more current photographs of Texans and evaluate in...
Curated OER
What Genre Am I?
First graders differentiate between different pieces of literary genres by participating in a hands-on activity. This includes a student assessment sheet.
Curated OER
Transportation Types
Students answer questions after listening for details that identify many different kinds of transportation.
Curated OER
Grab Hands and Run: Understanding Human Rights
Sixth graders read the novel Grab Hands and Run by Frances Temple. They explore the effects of war on human rights. Students explore the idea that human rights are protected by the United Nations. They identify the human rights that were...
Curated OER
Michigan's Lumbering history: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Fourth graders explore lumbering in Michigan. For this lumbering lesson, 4th graders examine the life of a modern day lumberjack and how technology can interfere with natural ecology. Students create a list of products from...
Curated OER
Electricity 4
Fifth graders create a timeline of the most important dates and events involved in the history of electricity. Each student researches one scientist and designs and illustrates a piece of a poster board for the timeline.
Curated OER
Fencing in Theatrical Fighting
Twelfth graders examine the basic choreography of fencing in theatrical fighting. They watch a teacher demonstration, view an excerpt from the movie, "The Princess Bride," and demonstrate various fencing moves.
Curated OER
Storytelling with the Opaque Projector
Students create illustrations for a folktale that are shown with an opaque projector during the story reading. They are assigned a picture description and do not know how their picture fits into the story until all of the illustrations...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Writing an Opinion in Response to the Story
Learners need to have lots of opportunities to share their opinions based on text. In this lesson, the teacher will read the story, Jack and the Beanstalk, multiple times before the students create their opinion. The detailed process of...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Graffiti Wall: Discussing and Responding to Literature
New ways of thinking about text, collaboration with group members, and presentation skills are all developed with this lesson which could be applied to almost any novel read in class. Includes student handouts, an online interactive, and...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Introduction to Opinion Writing
Students' opinions are a crucial step in the foundation of good writing. After reading 'I will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato', students will state their own opinion about a topic through writing.
Other
Oakland Writes: Student Exemplars: Tenth Grade: Response to Literature [Pdf]
An literary response essay written by a tenth-grader with notes calling attention to important writing concepts evident in the essay including a well-written title and introduction, a strong thesis, supporting details including quotes...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Corduroy Lesson Plan
This ReadWriteThink lesson plan features an opportunity for students to respond to literature through writing journals about "Corduroy," by Don Freeman. This idea could be used with other books as well.
Teachnology
Teachnology: Lesson Plan: Letters From Rifka
In this 3rd through 5th grade lesson, young scholars read the book Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse and write responses as Tovah to three of Rifka's letters in their journal.