The Comparison and Contrast Guide outlines the characteristics of the genre and provides direct instruction on the methods of organizing, gathering ideas, and writing comparison and contrast essays.

Using Construct-a-Word, students learn letter-sound correspondence by combining a beginning letter or blend to a word ending to create words.

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn how the theory that explains the position of Earth's continents was established and later modified, and gain important insights into how science and the scientific community operate.

While studying the Articles of Confederation government and the Constitutional Convention in this problem-based learning module, the students will determine the benefits of peacefully changing an inept government.  They will deduce the crucial steps needed for peaceful change to happen within a society.  An area of research will be chosen to help solve a problem critical to the students’ middle school lives.  Feedback will be gathered through a video interview or a Google Form survey of crucial stakeholders.  Students will research the alternatives to improve upon their selected problem.  Students will present their findings to a decision maker and wait to receive feedback.

In Math, students will draw a t-chart to represent dam and flood data obtained from their reading resource. Students will select the information they wish to use from the reading resource (their opinions). Students will then use rulers marked with halves and fourths of an inch to measure lengths and construct a scale model of their own dam, which they can later construct in Science. Students will represent data in a graph and use measurement data by measuring lengths using rulers marked with halves and fourths of an inch. Students will test their scale dams and make changes as needed. This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

This lesson introduces the concept of cause and effect with Trinka Hakes Noble's books about Jimmy and his boa constrictor. Each lesson begins with the teacher reading a new story about Jimmy and his boa and the chaos they bring to each place they visit. Class discussions about each event and its cause are followed by tasks for the students to help illustrate understanding of the concept. Students create cause-and-effect pictures, puzzles, and flow charts as they explore the genre. As a culminating activity, students write their own book with causes and effects, which are assessed with a rubric.

In this seminar you will be engaged by video, text, and activities that will help you determine (identify/label) the author’s purpose in printed material. You will be using habits of mind which focus on clarity in communication, as well as accessing prior knowledge to make new decisions regarding the purpose of text. Realize that authors of any printed material have a reason for writing. Understanding this purpose will help you develop your own comprehension and writing skills.StandardsCC.1.2.6.D - Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text.

In this seminar, you will learn how to use quotation marks, punctuation, and capitalization correctly to enhance story. Adding dialogue to a narrative writing piece helps you develop characters, move the plot along, and keeps the reader interested and invested in reading the story until the end which is a goal of all authors. During this seminar, you will learn how to use quotations marks and punctuation correctly by learning the grammatical rules for dialogue and analyzing the errors in examples of dialogue. You will be comparing and classifying both narratives with and without dialogue and different ways dialogue can be written within text. You will also create your own dialogues within your narrative writing.StandardsCC.1.4.4.M/ 1.4.5.MWrite narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events.

In this segment from Curious, learn about creating energy from solar rays to meet the growing energy needs of the world.

This resource was created by Megan Andersen in collaboration with Crystal Hurt as part of the 2019-20 ESU-NDE Digital Age Pedagogy Project. Educators worked with coaches to create Lesson Plans promoting both content area and digital age skills. This Lesson Plan is designed for 10th Grade English Language Arts.  

This resource was created by Crystal Hurt as part of the 2019-20 ESU-NDE Digital Age Pedagogy Project. Educators worked with coaches to create Lesson Plans promoting both content area and digital age skills. This Lesson Plan is designed for MS Language Arts. 

Students will begin this lesson by accessing their prior knowledge on Earth's natural resources through a brainstorming activity. The teacher will introduce the topic of fossil fuels, which are non-renewable resources such as coal, oil, and natural gas. The teacher will lead students in utilizing the jigsaw literacy strategy, in which students will become members of a home group and an expert group as they research and discuss their assigned topic. This lesson will culminate with students creating a presentation in the form of a research paper, poster, or slideshow to demonstrate their knowledge of the distribution and creation of fossil fuels. This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

Students will use a Venn diagram to compare lightning and static electricity. Then, students will experiment with static electricity and read nonfiction passages about lightning and lightning rods. Finally, they will apply their learning to construct a model of a lightning rod system that protects a house from a lightning-induced fire. This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this lesson, students will demonstrate echolocation using only their sense of hearing to locate sounds in their environment by playing a game of Marco Polo. Students will create their own method of echlocation to communicate with each other. Students will write a narrative, from the viewpoint of a dolphin, describing how a dolphin uses echolocation to communicate and to locate things in their environment to aid in their survival. This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

Learn about inspirations for a story and how that story can inspire a new song. Mary and Mike travel to the Music Resource Center in Charlottesville to meet up with the author, Marc Boston, and the musician, Tevin White. Marc shares his beautiful children’s book, inspired by his own daughter. And Tevin shares a special song that he wrote, inspired by Marc’s book. Together, we learn how to stop carrying so much stuff!

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Songs and Stories with Mary and Mike uses music and story as the joyful pathway to learning for young children while integrating and modeling the state's new EC learning standards for literacy, math, and social-emotional learning as well as the National Standards for Music Education. The show forges connections across the greater community by featuring guest teachers, artists, musicians, authors, and community members. With every music selection, book selection, and guest spotlight, Mary and Mike strive for a rich, diverse, beautiful representation of all people and cultures. The message to beautiful learners is clear: they are loved, they are valued, and they can do amazing things.

Doodle Splash combines the process of drawing with analytical thinking by pairing online drawing with writing prompts that encourage students to make connections between their visual designs and the text.

In this problem-based learning module, students will work together collaboratively to establish questions and develop these questions into claims after being presented with the problem “How are today’s living standards contributing to the drug resistance disease crisis and what needs to be done to begin to reverse the effects of the contributing factors?”  The students will then work collaboratively to continue researching and will use the research to create a collaborative electronic public service announcement to go along with an individually written letter which will be sent to either a state representative, the FDA, lead community personnel, etc. Both products, the PSA and the letter will include their well defined claim, supported with evidence and backed up with reasoning.Prior to beginning module, please note: Module can be completed in isolation, or can be completed in conjunction with modules "Antibiotic Resistance and Antibiotic Policy" (science) and/or Advancing Change through Public Awareness (social studies) as part of a full interdisciplinary unit between 8th grade social studies, language arts and science.  This would allow for students to have a wider array of questions to guide their claims and the students could build the PSA in social studies and write the letter in Language Arts.

In this lesson, students will be introduced to some of the world's ecosystems as well as the animals/plants that inhabit them through children's literature. The students will use an app to create their own unique animal that would reside within a particular habitat. Through further online research, the students will then create writings to correlate with their new EcoCreatures. They will have to provide information on all aspects of their creature's habitat. This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.