This is one of my favorite units. I did it almost every year I was teaching and always had a good response. It works well because the writing assignment involves choice and authenticity. They aren’t writing what you tell them to write and they aren’t writing to you. This works great for a persuasive writing unit in English or a government unit in U.S. History. Students write official letters to their government representatives. Included in this set is a page for the teacher explaining how I taught this unit, a page on ethos/pathos/logos that can be used as a handout or a lesson, a planning page that guides the student's research and outline, a letter format page to help the student understand how to write an official letter, and a peer edit page for the revising process.

After learning what it means to make inferences, students will be surprised at how much they can infer with very little information. This lesson is easy to adjust depending on time and background knowledge and is a great lesson to springboard into other activities.

This engaging presentation will teach your students what an inference is, how to make them first using pictures and then using simple poems, and teach them how to back up their inferences with evidence. Includes a fun activity where students will solve poetic riddles and then create one of their own. Neat and clear presentation. Easy to adapt to your needs.

The prereading activity includes four very short primary source documents about slavery in order to give students the background knowledge they will need for the text. It would be a good idea to have the prereading activity completed in groups and discussed as a class. The questions to the text include 13 different questions, some comprehensive (ex: How did Douglass learn to read?), some text-to-self comparisons (ex: If you were in Douglass’s position, what do you think would be the most difficult part of life as a slave for you?), and some analytical (ex: Why do you think Frederick Douglass called this story about him learning to read, “A Spirit Unshackled?” ). I'm including it as a docx to simplify editing for you. You may add or delete questions as needed for your student's ability and time.

9 page packet for supplemental use when teaching the short story “To Build a Fire.” I used this with my students when I taught 8th grade. We read this story at the beginning of the year. Page 1 & 2: Comparing “To Build a Fire” with the short story “The Law of Life.” Page 3: Pre-reading activity Pages 4-8: During the story activities including vocabulary, reading strategies, and foreshadowing lesson and practice page. Page 9: During/after reading characterization analysis I have included both a PDF version and a word doc version for editing.

This is a fun and engaging final activity that the students work towards throughout a literary unit on Agatha Christie's novel, "And Then There Were None." This set includes a handout for the students, a rubric, and an explanation page for the teacher. Get ready for an exciting day filled with classroom discussion and accusations as students literally get in character and try to figure out "who done it!"

An engaging presentation where students learn about context clues through inquiry and then identify types at the end of the lesson instead of the beginning. Students will discover they can define words such as "bellwether" and "saxicolous" through careful reading and context clues. The PowerPoint presentation includes an attention grabber, an activity, and notes. Can be completed in as short as 15 minutes or longer depending on your students' background knowledge and how in depth you decide to take the discussion. Includes a fun worksheet that uses Lewis Carroll famous poem, "The Jabberwocky" to put context clues into action. Great way to assess what the student's have learned.

Students will practice their knowledge of context clues and connotation by studying Lewis Carroll's famous poem "The Jabberwocky." There are two activities in this worksheet which both lend themselves to great discussions. Students enjoy this poem and it is a great way to explain how connotation and context clues work together (the way the words make us feel help us understand what they mean). It is also great for teaching how certain SOUNDS can even make us feel a certain way. This is important in any poetry unit. Basically there are a lot of fun things to do with this poem and a lot of different directions to take it.

This is designed to be used near the beginning of a poetry unit for middle school. It could be used as an introduction to figurative language, specifically similes and metaphors. Students define simile and metaphor, example famous examples, and then create their own, modeling after the professional. They then examine two short poems by Langston Hughes, putting what they learned into practice. They will identify and examine, analyzing why mostly similes are used in one poem while Hughes relies heavily on metaphors in the other. In the lesson, the teacher should work with the student to understand the purpose of similes and metaphors in general and how they relate to these poems. I have included both a PDF and a word document version for editing.

Have students correct these real life examples of grammar mistakes! Includes ten examples for correcting. Also includes a worksheet with a key for additional grammar practice if needed.

Have students create classroom visual aids to help each other tell those tricky words apart. Includes a presentation with instructions and examples, a list of words you could choose from, and a quiz with a key.

A presentation to teach students HOW to use a textbook and a class poster to remind them. When I was teaching, I found a lot of students were completely unfamiliar with HOW to read nonfiction, informational texts, and textbooks. This is a necessary life skill and one worth teaching in EVERY classroom. 85% of what we read as adults in nonfiction, not to mention the fact that if our students going to make it through middle school, high school, and college a few tips about how to conquer those daunting texts are be more than necessary. In this engaging presentation filled with examples and tips, students can find out just how to conquer these texts and make textbooks work for them. This also includes a fun assignment with a rubric that has students making their own "textbooks" all about their favorite subject.... their lives ;) (I've also include the External Text Features Scavenger Hunt just for your convenience. This is one of the free resources in my shop)

The perfect project for those two days before Thanksgiving! Keep your students learning and engaged! Your students will analyze a letter written by Pilgrim Edward Winslow, one of the few accounts that actually mentions the first Thanksgiving. The letter talks about the First Thanksgiving and goes into more detail about their harvest and what they ate that first year. (I have edited this primary source for clarity and have taken out parts that weren’t necessary for this assignment.) After analyzing the letter, your students will use the provided template to create a restaurant menu from the first Thanksgiving! I have included a presentation to help you introduce the assignment. It includes a description, sample menus, and a suggested rubric. This assignment is easily adaptable to a variety of ages. It is made for a U.S. History class, but would also be fun in a home living/cooking class! If this is your first experience teaching primary sources, this is a great one to start with! This assignment also works well in homeschool situations. Feel free to jump in and try out a few of the dishes your students come up with!

I used this in my classroom to make the rules more memorable and fun for my students. The file is in word so feel free to edit as needed. My philosophy was simple, easy to remember, positively stated rules.

Fun pictures to help get kids writing. My students in the past responded well to these pictures (i.e. giraffes waterskiing, iceclimbers, etc). They can be used in a variety of assignments and are in an easy to edit PowerPoint format.

Students will work in teams to search around the room, in magazines, newspapers, and textbooks to find examples of external text features. A fun and easy activity to quickly test if students understand and can identify these features that are important for navigating informational texts.