A comprehensive ELA lesson focusing on analyzing paired texts about social connection, utilizing the RACE strategy to draft an MCAS-style open response. Students will compare digital and traditional ways of building friendships.
An immersive, hands-on lesson exploring six major types of figurative language through structured station activities, a collaborative workshop, mentor poetry analysis, and an interactive slideshow. Students learn to identify, analyze, and craft similes, metaphors, personification, hyperboles, alliteration, and onomatopoeia.
An exploration of Andrea Davis Pinkney's 'The Red Pencil'. Amira navigates the trauma of Kalma refugee camp, finding her voice and healing through her red pencil, secret nighttime reading lessons, and a powerful shared release of grief with her mother.
A differentiated lesson focused on character analysis. Students learn to hunt for textual clues and combine them with personal schema to uncover character traits and deep-seated motivations, structured across three escalating levels of task complexity (Fact Finding, Trait Tracking, and Motive Mapping).
An exploration of Chapters 31-36 of 'Knead'. Alba works desperately to save Toni's traditional Barcelona bakery, confronting painful family history and social class barriers, before pitching a revolutionary, pun-filled new business plan to her grandmother.
A comprehensive school-wide literacy program and implementation toolkit. Includes a 40-week master quest index, printable student submission slips, and a high-impact library bulletin board poster.
An exploration of Part III of Marjorie Agosín's 'The Road to Butterfly Hill'. Celeste returns to Chile after the fall of the dictatorship, reconnects with her family and friends on Butterfly Hill, and embarks on a courageous journey south with Cristóbal to find her parents.
A comprehensive middle school ELA reading unit focused on internet safety and digital citizenship. Includes a two-page paired reading passage (informational and narrative), a four-page standard-aligned comprehension assessment covering 12 standards (RI.1-4, RI.8, RL.1-4, RL.8, L.4-5) plus context-clues, and a complete teacher's answer key with standard alignments and detailed rationales.
A study of Chapters 31-36 of Elsie Chapman's 'All The Ways Home'. Students explore Kaede's search for identity, his complex relationship with his brother Shoma, his father's painful abandonment, and his desperate choice to steal Shoma's bass to find his father in Sapporo.
A lesson covering Chapters 32-36 of Aisha Saeed's 'Amal Unbound'. Students analyze Amal's bittersweet visit home, her realization of Nasreen Baji's gilded cage, and the unexpected opportunity to attend the new literacy center.
A spelling and phonics lesson for grades 4-6 focusing on the /sh/ sound spelled with 'ci' (as in special) and 'ti' (as in patient). Students explore patterns, organize words in detective-style case files, and apply their knowledge through interactive word hunts and spelling activities.