7th Grade Historical Literacy consists of two 43 minute class periods. Writing is one 43 minute block and reading is another. The teacher has picked themes based on social studies standards, and a read-aloud novel based on social studies serves as the mentor text for writing and reading skills. More social studies content is addressed in reading through teaching nonfiction reading skills and discussion.
Standards reflect CCSS ELA, Reading, and Social Studies Standards.

Students use Library of Congress primary sources to plan, take, and document a trip around the world in 1896.

Students use Library of Congress primary sources to examine the Civil War and American industrialization.

What does it take to be successful in the workplace? This unit provides students with the opportunity to examine this question, evaluate what others say and form their own voice, and finally to express and share what they find. The materials are for the instructor and provide options to adapt to specfic students. learning needs,  and time frame.

In this unit students will reflect on their own media environment, understand how cognitive bias and social media algorithms influence that environment, and learn how to investigate new sources and claims online. These activities culminate in a student-led "social science fair" MisinfoNight event where they present their new skills and knowledge to family members to help them become more savvy information consumers. 

Students use Library of Congress primary sources to examine the forced acculturation of American Indians through government-run boarding schools.

In this 8 eight-week module, students explore the experiences of people of Southern Sudan during and after the Second Sudanese Civil War. They build proficiency in using textual evidence to support ideas in their writing, both in shorter responses and in an extended essay. In Unit 1, students begin the novel A Long Walk to Water (720L) by Linda Sue Park. Students will read closely to practice citing evidence and drawing inferences from this compelling text as they begin to analyze and contrast the points of view of the two central characters, Salva and Nya. They also will read informational text to gather evidence on the perspectives of the Dinka and Nuer tribes of Southern Sudan. In Unit 2, students will read the remainder of the novel, focusing on the commonalities between Salva and Nya in relation to the novel’s theme: how individuals survive in challenging environments. (The main characters’ journeys are fraught with challenges imposed by the environment, including the lack of safe drinking water, threats posed by animals, and the constant scarcity of food. They are also challenged by political and social environments.). As in Unit 1, students will read this literature closely alongside complex informational texts (focusing on background on Sudan and factual accounts of the experiences of refugees from the Second Sudanese Civil War). Unit 2 culminates with a literary analysis essay about the theme of survival. Unit 3 brings students back to a deep exploration of character and point of view: students will combine their research about Sudan with specific quotes from A Long Walk to Water as they craft a two-voice poem, comparing and contrasting the points of view of the two main characters, Salva and Nya,. The two-voice poem gives students an opportunity to use both their analysis of the characters and theme in the novel and their research about the experiences of the people of Southern Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

In this module, students explore the issue of working conditions, both historical and modern day. As they read and discuss both literary and informational text, students analyze how people, settings, and events interact in a text and how an author develops a central claim. Students strengthen their ability to discuss specific passages from a text with a partner, write extended text-based argument and informational pieces, and conduct a short research project. At the end of the module, students will have a better understanding of how working conditions affect workers and the role that workers, the government, consumers, and businesses play in improving working conditions. The first unit focuses on Lyddie, a novel that tells the story of a young girl who goes to work in the Lowell mills, and explores the issue of working conditions in industrializing America. This unit builds students’ background knowledge about working conditions and how they affect workers, and centers on the standard RL.7.3, which is about how plot, character, and setting interact in literature. As an end of unit assessment, students write an argument essay about Lyddie’s choices regarding her participation in the protest over working conditions. The second unit moves to more recent history and considers the role that workers, the government, and consumers all play in improving working conditions. The central text in Unit 2 is a speech by César Chávez, in which he explains how the United Farm Workers empowered farmworkers. Unit 2 focuses on reading informational text, and students practice identifying central ideas in a text, analyzing how an author develops his claims, and identifying how the sections of the text combine to build those ideas. This unit intentionally builds on Odell Education’s work, and if teachers have already used the Chávez speech and lessons, an alternate text is suggested with which to teach the same informational text standards. In the End of Unit 2 Assessment, students apply their understanding of text structure to a new speech. Unit 3 focuses on the research standards (W.7.7 and W.7.8): through an investigation of working conditions in the modern day garment industry, students explore how businesses can affect working conditions, both positively and negatively. As a final performance task, students create a consumer’s guide to working conditions in the garment industry. This teenage consumer’s guide provides an overview of working conditions and offers advice to consumers who are interested in working conditions in the garment industry.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

This guide provides student-driven projects that can directly teach subject area standards in tandem with foundational understandings of what AI is, how it works, and how it impacts society. Several key approaches were taken into consideration in the design of these projects. Understanding these approaches will support both your understanding and implementation of the projects in this guide, as well as your own work to design further activities that integrate AI education into your curriculum.

Project 1: AI Chatbots
Project 2: Developing a Critical Eye
Project 3: Using AI to Solve Environmental Problems
Project 4: Laws for AI

Visit the ISTE website with all the free practical guides for engaging students in AI creation: https://www.iste.org/areas-of-focus/AI-in-education

Objective: Using your school’s local version of ISearch, students will gather and cite information from multiple texts and diverse media and draw on information from multiple print or digital sources.Note: If students do not know what a primary source document is and why researchers use them, you may wish to tell them that primary source documents include letters, diaries, journals, interviews, transcripts, speeches, and pamphlets. Researchers and historians use them as first-hand accounts of something that happened at a certain point in time.Instructions: Use the ISearch BINGO card and one of the three worksheets to teach students how to use ISearch to find academic sources. Worksheet A introduces students to the ISearch interface. Worksheet B introduces students to the ISearch interface by comparing it with another search tool of your choosing. Worksheet C introduces students to the ISearch interface and requires students to cite sources correctly in an annotated bibliography.Distribute the ISearch BINGO Worksheet of your choosing (A, B, or C) for Grades 6-8.Encourage students to read all directions along with you first so you can help them understand.Demonstrate how to use ISearch to find sources and how to create citations or find citation helpers. See demo instructions.Pass out the BINGO cards. Explain how to get a BINGO. Tell students that they can choose any of the topics in the box as a search term when looking for that source. They can mix and match. In other words, a student can do a search for civil rights for B1 and suffrage for I6, or the student could do civil rights across the row.ModificationsEncourage students to work in teams to find the sources.Change the search terms in the BINGO card to relate to those with a current classroom assignment.Time Required: Activities in Worksheet A can be completed in 25-45 minutes. Activities in Worksheet B can be completed in 45-65 minutes. Activities in Worksheet C can be completed in 90 minutes.

This resource includes multiple lesson plans developed by Washington State teacher John Zingale and can be taught as part of in-person, hybrid, or remote instructional settings. The core content areas include social studies, civics, and media literacy and are designed for use with students in grades 6-12. Additional integrations include ELA, world languages, mathematics, physical education and science. These lessons integrate both state and national civics instruction using project-based and collaborative learning strategies. Features of these lessons include:student researchcollaborative learningdigital learning strategieslateral readingdesign and creation of infographicsTo support these lessons, additional resources are provided to help educators and families with understanding and teaching information and media literacy to young people. Resources include:introductions to media literacyeducator guidesparent guidesstudent learning standards

This is a great final project for a unit on mythology. It can be used after reading a myth or after learning about Greek Gods and Goddesses. It can be used as a formative or summative.  Some suggested tools to help create a brochure include: Google, PowerPoint, Google, Canva, or complete on paper.

In this unit, students explore and discuss video clips, articles, advertisements, myths, and other relevant information about how media sources affect our food choices.In particular, students learn about the marketing of food to children and adolescents. The unit will culminate with students working in groups of 3 to create a media presentation that can serve as a decision-making guide to inform food choices/decisions.Standards:CCSS English Language Arts (Grades 7-8)Ohio Standards for Technology   

Coastal wetlands bring many benefits to ecosystems including their ability to sequester carbon and mitigate fluctuations in sea levels. Students will understand the ecosystem benefits of coastal wetlands with a focus on the potential of estuaries for climate related planning.

This unit is focused on the examination of a single topic, in this case, the Native Americans of the inland Northwest and conflict that arose when other non-native people started to settle in the northwest, and to specifically address the native populations that lived in the inland northwest. The materials were created to be one coherent arc of instruction focused on one topic. The module was designed to include teaching notes that signal the kind of planning and thinking such instruction requires: close reading with complex text, and specific instructional strategies or protocols are described that support students’ reading and writing with evidence are described in enough detail to make it very clear what is required of students and how to support students in doing this rigorous work. Materials include summative assessment of content and process, central texts, key resources, and protocols that support and facilitate student learning.

Students use Library of Congress primary sources to examine continuity and change in the governing of the United States by looking at the Constitution and linking early legislative debates to issues of...

Students will be working with the problem “How do we know water is safe to drink?” under the theme of “How does access to clean water and sanitation affect a culture?” Students participate in labs related to the hydrologic cycle and water quality. Students design and build a local watershed to model the movement of water across land. Students also research and explore print, video, and audio resources for news and information about local / global water pollution / impact by and on humans.Students share what they have researched with each other, then create an artifact (infographic, video, slideshow, animation, comic strip, etc) intended to educate peers and younger students about water quality and its importance. Ideally, finished products would be shared with others in an authentic setting.Standards:Ohio Science Standards (Grade 7)CCSS English Language Arts (Grade 7)

Through relevant videos, connections to young adult literature, and hands-on exploration, students are introduced to the challenge of providing clean water and sanitation through a global lens.Additionally, students go on a “water walk” to experience the challenges that some people face each day as they locate and collect clean water.The goal of the unit is to ground the activities in a culture of empathy. Furthermore, students participate in an engineering design challenge in which they build a water filter that is both cost-efficient and effective in changing the pH and turbidity of the water samples.Finally, students have the opportunity to share their learning with peers and local experts through a sales presentation as they pitch their device and findings.Standards:CCSS English Language Arts (Grade 7)CCSS Math (Grade 7)Ohio Standards for Science (Grade 7)