Students are often asked to perform speeches, but rarely do we require students to analyze speeches as carefully as we study works of literature. In this unit, students are required to identify the rhetorical strategies in a famous speech and the specific purpose for each chosen device. They will write an essay about its effectiveness and why it is still famous after all these years.

Nikki Giovanni's poem "The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr." is paired with Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, taking students on a quest through time to the Civil Rights movement.

To prepare for literature circles featuring historical novels, students research the decades of the 1930s to the 1990s and share their information using Prezi, a web application for creating multimedia presentations.

After reading the book ¡Si, Se Puede!/Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A., students learn about labor unions, strikes, and organizing for change. Students interview staff members in their school to learn about their daily work life, and write persuasive advocacy letters.

Rosa Parks was committed to the struggle for social justice and human rights until her death, inspiring millions of people around the world. Today, we celebrate her!

Students won't miss a beat in this musical lesson that combines listening with personal response on a postcard.

Interaction and adventure draws high school and elementary school students together as they analyze stories about the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Students often believe that fiction writers make everything up, seldom realizing how research worms its way into entertaining writing. In this lesson, students read Diary of a Worm to find out how fact merges with fiction.

This minilesson encourages children to seek out and appropriately react to nutrition labels and to make healthy food choices, integrating science, math, health, and literacy.

This lesson is a conversation-starter! In this lesson, students learn about striking up deep-thought conversations and staying on topic in the form of a book talk.

Students won't miss a beat in this reading fluency lesson that combines music and poetry.

Writing gets personal when students interview family members in order to write a personal narrative about that person.

Students circle their desks as they analyze their own participation within a small group discussion.

How do you read an image? Students find out in this lesson in which they "read" several images of the Boston Massacre to better understand the event and recognize effects of propaganda.

Variable vowels are the focus of this lesson; students use nursery rhymes and ow to study how vowels can change their sounds according to different spelling patterns.

Students take poetic license when they interpret William Carlos William's poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" to help create a poem of their own.

Striking images can leave lasting impressions on viewers. In this lesson, students make text–self–world connections to a nature- or science-related topic as they collaboratively design a multimedia presentation.

Who are the people behind the world's greatest inventions? Students read biographies of a terrific trio of American inventors and create presentations that highlight how their inventions from the past impacted the future.

People make the past come alive as students research and then share stories about famous Americans who promoted democratic ideals.