All About Me

In this lesson plan, the traditional autobiography writing project is given a twist as students write alphabiographies—recording an event, person, object, or feeling associated with each letter of the alphabet. Students are introduced to the idea of the alphabiography through a presentation giving the instructions of how to create guidelines for writing their own alphabiographies. Students create an entry for each letter of the alphabet, writing about an important event from their lives. After the entry for each letter, students sum up the stories by writing the life lessons they learned from the events. Since this type of autobiography breaks out of chronological order, students can choose what has been important in their lives. And since the writing pieces are short, even reluctant writers are eager to write!

Material Type: Assessment

Author: Sylvia Castro

70 Characters or Less...

Students will play a written version of the game telephone, and will determine what sorts of communication is effective with limited information, if any.  This lesson is part of a media unit curated at our Digital Citizenship website, "Who Am I Online?". 

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Game, Lesson, Lesson Plan

Authors: Dana John, Beth Clothier, John Sadzewicz, Angela Anderson

Writing a Descriptive Narrative essay

Students will complete a series of tasks to build skills in preparation of writing a descritpive/narrative essay.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Colleen Comer

Author’s Purpose: Identify and Explain PIE

In this seminar you will be engaged by video, text, and activities that will help you identify and explain the “Author’s Purpose” of printed material. You will be using habits of mind which focus on clarity in communication, as well as accessing prior knowledge to make new decisions regarding the purpose of text. Realize that authors of any printed material have a reason for writing.  Understanding this purpose will help you develop your own comprehension and writing skills.StandardsCC.1.2.6.D - Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text.  

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Tracy Rains

All About Earth's Climate

In this informational text, elementary school readers learn about the difference between weather and climate and about components of the climate system. The text can be used to practice visualizing and other comprehension strategies. Available in K-2 and 3-5 grade bands and as an illustrated book as well as a text document, the story appears in the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Jessica Fries-Gaither, National Science Foundation

100 Years of Women's Suffrage

Learn how brave women fought for the right to vote and won 100 years ago.

Material Type: Lesson

Authors: Karen Hoffman, Laura Town, Williamstown Communications

02: The New South | How the Monuments Came Down

Learn how enslaved African Americans in Richmond, Virginia, established what a historian in this clip calls “quasi-free communities, where they etched out lives for themselves, that paved the way forward.”  This resource is part of the How the Monuments Came Down collection, created by Virginia Public Media.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Primary Source, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Trish Reed

Breaking the Rules in Shakespeare

This unit will focus on the transgressive behavior of characters from some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays and how we can identify with those actions. This unit is designed to help students bridge the gap between Shakespearean literature and modern life. Many times we find ourselves saying the wrong thing to someone, something that might sound offensive; and even if we didn’t mean it, the next necessary step is to consider how we get out of that situation. In modern life, we create transgressive behavior just as did Shakespeare’s characters. The plays we will focus on in this unit are Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, and Henry IV part 1. Students will be asked to identify the transgressive behavior, to discuss the significance of who owns it, how he or she got into the situation, and how the scene might alternatively play out. Students will be asked to create parallel moments in contemporary contexts and to incorporate the Shakespeare line in their alternative contexts. This unit will suggest the use of vocabulary lists per each play, summaries of each story, character maps, as well as background information on the writer himself.

Material Type: Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

Shakespeare is Still Relevant!

This introduces William Shakespeare's language by providing students with an opportunity to examine phrases and sayings first written in his plays. Students will read an informational text as well as spend time researching various Shakespearean phrases and their presence in his plays to determine his continuing relevance in modern language today. Students will be able to apply Shakespearean phrases to modern situations in order to determine his relevance.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Monica Williams

Breaking Down Your Prompt

This fillable Google Doc helps you break down any prompt into its main tasks and requirements, list helpful resources and readings, and brainstorm ideas for answering the prompt. Make a copy and use it as many times as you need!

Material Type: Homework/Assignment, Interactive

Authors: Chris Lopez, Doug Worsham, Kian Ravaei

Argument in Political Cartoons

This lesson involves students exploring political cartoons and analyzing the argument being made.  Students will work in groups to build skills, then they will get an assignment to practice the skill on their own.

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Author: Christa Galvin

12 Ways to bring STEM to Your Classroom

From Getting Smart, here are 12 ways to start teaching STEM Want more STEM experiences for your students but don’t know where to start? Want to infuse art into science and boost STEAM experiences? Before exploring how to do STEM, let’s define what it is. Everybody teaches science and math—STEM adds technology and engineering to the equation; STEAM adds art. Common elements of quality STEM learning include: • Design-focus: using design tools and techniques to attack big problems or opportunity (challenge-based, problem-based learning). • Active application: applying knowledge and skills to real-world situations and constructing or prototyping solutions to challenges (maker, project-based learning). • Integration: real world problems aren’t limited to a discipline—solutions almost always draw from many fields.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Greg Young

14 - Work: Do Your Work! Activity

These lesson plans and activities were developed by Janine Darragh, Gina Petrie, and Stan Pichinevskiy and were previously located on the Reaching for English app. Created for K-12 English teachers in Nicaragua, the materials may be used and adapted for any country's specific context and needs.  

Material Type: Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Marco Seiferle-Valencia, Janine Darragh

23 Things for Digital Knowledge

23 Things is a suite of 23 self-paced online modules that cover a range of topics from video editing to basic coding. Each module or 'thing' consists of information, interactive activities, and invitations to try out various open and free software applications and technologies. The modules have been created using H5P and can be downloaded individually as a single H5P file, modified and re-used under a CC-BY-SA licence - simply click on the 'reuse' link at the bottom of each module. The content was created by Curtin University students as part of a 'students as partners' project.

Material Type: Full Course, Interactive

Author: Curtin University Library

High vs. Low Technology

A vast range of technological tools available in education can be categorized as high and low technology.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: LAPU

Learn Easy Steps: Create a Brochure

This activity card is meant to be a self-paced lesson showing users how to create a brochure. This activity was originally developed by Intel® as part of the Intel® Learn Easy Steps program.

Material Type: Lesson

Author: Clarity Innovations

Student Engagement

OER for Student Engagement featuring Google Form, Nearpod, and PearDeck

Material Type: Module

Author: Thomas McClain

Poetry Analysis

This English Language Arts lesson focuses on the understanding of literary devices as related to poetry with poems found via poetryfoundation.org.Students will analyze tone and mood by rephrasing lines of poetry to match the author's intent.Students will explore the poet's message and defend their ideas in paragraph form.This assignment addresses Nebraska state standards: NE.LA 10.1.6.A NE.LA 10.1.6.C  NE.LA 10.1.6.K  NE.LA 10.2.2.E This lesson will take about 40-50 minutes.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Katie Schneider

Archetypes and Character Development

In this lesson, students will analyze archetypes and how they contribute to universal story telling and character development.

Material Type: Lesson

Author: Becca Egan

Analyzing Greenwashing

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students analyze the concept of greenwashing of products. SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson introduces students to greenwashing and then presents Trader Joe’s as a case study. Students are tasked with designing their own green product and an accompanying marketing plan. The lesson informs students how companies can mislead them with products that only seem environmentally friendly and gives tips on how to spot greenwashing. This lesson is recommended for teaching. (The only small issue with this lesson is that an advertisement for a VPN is included in the Trader Joe’s case study video, but that's just part of using resources from YouTube.) POSITIVES: -Students create a product and then see what effect their product has on consumers. This will show students how greenwashing occurs within marketing campaigns. -This lesson includes media literacy components. ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES: -Teachers should be familiar with the term greenwashing and be able to explain what is regulated by the FDA and what is not regulated by the FDA. -Teachers should understand the term green is not regulated by the FDA, but the term organic is regulated by the FDA. DIFFERENTIATION: -The term greenwashing is an abstract concept, so it may be hard for students to grasp. Showing other examples of greenwashing may help students better understand the concept. -Teachers can show students different labels or advertisements and have students analyze whether they consider each example greenwashing or not.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Christa Delaney