Students will discover a policy within their school or district that is important to them and that they'd like to change. They will conduct an investigation of the policy in question and write a letter with their claim, results, and recommendation to the appropriate audience.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
This free video series provides definitions of literary terms in English literature to students and teachers. It also offers examples of how these literary devices can be applied to poems, plays, novels, and short stories. We are in the process of translating the videos into Spanish and many of them now contain these subtitles.
Material Type: Lesson
In the Oregon State Guide to Grammar, our professors define grammar terms, explain grammatical conventions, identify parts of speech and constructions, and help students toward a better awareness of their own linguistic intuition. The video series is designed to be a free, online, creative commons (CC BY) resource for high school and college English teachers and students, offering them tools to engage meaningfully with challenging grammatical issues. To see the videos, please click on the "View Resource" above.
Material Type: Lesson
MOSAIC selects, reviews, and promotes books that authentically and realistically portray the diversity of all students, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Every resource is reviewed by ESU 18 committee members for accuracy, authenticity, content and perspective, characterization, setting, and literary quality. Only the "best of the best" resources are included in the annual MOSAIC collection.
Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy
Mary French, director of the Dictionary Project, discussed her organization’s work to promote literacy by giving dictionaries to students. She explains how Annie Plumber began the project and its impact over time.
Material Type: Lesson
Designed for middle and high school teachers, we’ll consider how to tackle misinformation, how to analyze digital media, and why it’s important for your students. Robert Costa is the Moderator of Washington Week, the Peabody Award-winning weekly news analysis series on PBS. Costa is also a full-time national political reporter for The Washington Post, where he covers Congress and the White House and regularly travels the country to meet with voters and elected officials. Led by PBS Digital Innovator All Star Leigh Herman and PBS Station Representative Mary Anne Lane this session highlights exciting resources and models that you can immediately implement in your classroom. Prioritizing fun, engaging and accessible tools for your students, the series will highlight techniques for analyzing media, and amplifying student voice through authentic storytelling.
Material Type: Lesson
Explore how reading can be a revolutionary act in this video from the American Masters film Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.
Material Type: Primary Source
Engage students in the study of themes connected to the novel The Bluest Eye in this video from the American Masters film Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. Morrison explains how the “master narrative” shapes fiction and history and how she has tried to combat this narrative in works like The Bluest Eye. Support materials include discussions and ideas for extending learning in the classroom.
Material Type: Primary Source
In this interactive lesson, discover how literary techniques like setting, characterization, and conflict contribute to the overarching theme of a text. Through analysis of Lorraine Hansberry's iconic play A Raisin in the Sun, explore the importance of these different elements individually, then learn how each piece comes together to establish theme.
Material Type: Interactive, Lesson, Lesson Plan
Examine Maya Angelou’s impact on those who knew her personally in this video from American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise. Utilizing video, discussion questions and teaching tips, students analyze and reflect on Angelou’s mentors in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
Material Type: Primary Source
In this interactive lesson, discover how literary techniques like figurative language, imagery, and symbolism contribute to the overall meaning of a poem. Explore how a poet establishes and builds on a theme. Learn how to tell the difference between tone and mood. Through a close reading of Maya Angelou’s famous poem “Caged Bird” (1983), practice unpacking the language of poetry while learning about some of the various tools a writer can utilize when writing a poem. This student-directed lesson can be completed online. Students will require a login if the instructor desires that they save their work to the platform. You will find detailed instructions on how to set up and manage accounts, class rosters, and assignments in the Help section of the interactive lesson plan.
Material Type: Interactive, Lesson
Learn how to add details to make the setting of your stories come alive in this Story Pirates video from Camp TV. By using words to describe how a place looks, sounds, feels, smells, and even tastes you can make your writing more compelling.
Material Type: Lesson
Practice how to show, not tell, with similes in this Story Pirates video from Camp TV. Get ready to get creative and use your imagination!
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Sherry and Justin from Story Pirates show you how to keep a reader on the edge of their seat in this clip about suspense in this video from Camp TV. They explain all the steps to make a story where the reader has to know what happens next and share their own mysterious and exciting examples.
Material Type: Lesson
A good story includes who the story is about (the characters), what it is about (the plot) and where it takes place (the setting). A storyteller can create any story with these building blocks. As readers, when we can identify these elements in a story, we can better interpret, understand and respond to it. Additionally, it's entertaining when we can tell it in different ways, such as through the rhyming style of rap. In this video segment from JAKERS!, a storyteller tells a story in the form of a rap and incorporates the story elements of who, what and where.
Material Type: Lesson
Family Storytelling Bingo will include a range of thematic learning opportunities for children to choose their own learning adventure. Students can use storytelling cards and sentence starters to develop personal narratives.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
In an eight week unit of study, students will explore concepts of migration through the lens of cultural identity and perspective. What are elements of culture that shape us, shape how we see others, and shape how we are seen in return? Students will investigate shifts in cultural norms and stereotypes specific to forced migration and captivity as depicted in The Tempest by William Shakespeare and supplemented through a variety of texts, discussions, and reflections.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Award-winning writer Jacqueline Woodson describes her books as “real, hard, yet hopeful.” This unit strives to be all three. Certainly, we need to give students opportunities to analyze and understand the world and its injustices; however, we also have an imperative to help foster hope while giving students the agency and skills to use their voices to speak up and change the world—even if that world is the one right outside their front door. This unit hopes to amplify voices of individuals that you don’t often hear from—those from underreported stories, and from students’ own communities. Through these individual stories, universal truths are also illuminated.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
This documentary film takes the viewer on a virtual trip around the world to visit communities in different countries (Asia, Africa, Central America, Australia) taking action on climate change. The documentary weaves together nine inspiring stories, showing that action on climate change is creating jobs, improving lives and turning dreams of a better future into reality.
Students across the board will get a kick out of researching a historical figure from the American Revolution to create an acrostic poem.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study
