Browse Lesson Plans

Comparing Communities

Students learn the conditional tense in French while discussing different communities.

Constitutional Convention

Simulate the writing of a constitution for the hypothetical country of Permistan.

Controversial Public Policy Issues

Conduct an opinion poll on-racial profiling. Physically engage students by having them move around from “Agree” to “Disagree” to “Undecided” positions during discussion.

Creating a Multi-Arts Performance Piece

Apply what you have learned so far in this unit to create, critique, and revise a multi-arts performance piece.

Critical Pedagogy: Lawson Fusao Inada

Visit a cultural center to see artifacts and hear first-person accounts of the victimization of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Critical Pedagogy: Abiodun Oyewole

Help students understand the political underpinnings of Abiodun Oyewole's spoken word poetry and learn how to express their own political beliefs.

Critical Pedagogy: Octavia E. Butler

Make connections between newspaper articles and issues Butler raises in the book. Encourage students to involve themselves politically by writing letters that call for social justice.

Critical Pedagogy: Ruthanne Lum McCunn

Discuss the Chinese practice of footbinding and then explore how contemporary American women suffer to make themselves conform to society's standards of beauty.

Cultural Studies: Graciela Limon

Cultural Studies: Ishmael Reed

Compare trickster figures in this poem with the same type of character in other literature.

Cultural Studies: N. Scott Momaday

Use family photographs to contextualize the familial experience of Momaday's work, and to respond through creative writing.

Cultural Studies: Russell Leong

Immerse students in Asian American culture with a class trip to Chinatown in Los Angeles. Create Japanese renga poems to describe the experience.

Cups and Chips - Solving Linear Equations Using Manipulatives

Manipulatives visually represent the steps taken to obtain the solution to an algebraic equation.

Current Events

Learn about current events, develop opinions about them, and then express and support those opinions in writing.

Curses and Re-Curses! It's Happening Again

The class learns about basic recursion by exploring patterns in the data they generate from two simple probability-based experiments.

Describe a New Substance

Weigh amounts of baking soda and vinegar then mix them together. Weigh them again afterwards. Try this with open and then closed containers.

Dissolving Race

Compare a sugar cube and an equivalent amount of granulated sugar, each dropped in an equal volume of water. Mix granulated sugar with cold and warm water.

Earth's Interior

Simulate the wave movement caused by earthquakes with a Slinky®, use Silly Putty® to show the qualities of both liquids and solids and illustrate convection currents with a specially designed fluid.

Electoral Politics

Prior to the 2002 mayoral election in Newark, New Jersey, students study the candidates’ positions on issues they have chosen to track.

Electrostatics Exhibits

Rub a clear plastic tube with different kinds of cloth to see how many Styrofoam chips can be picked up or moved around.