Elective 7--Lesson Plans

edhelper.com :  This link is specific to the edhelper.com literature units page.  It is broken down into unit levels (primary, upper elementary, middle school, and high school).  Many of the upper elementary school books are taught in middle school and some of the high school books are taught in middle school.  So, there is some overlap.  Each individual book site has a quiz and some vocabulary worksheets.  The quizzes can be customized to suit a teacher's needs.  The only drawback is that you have to register.

<http://www.edhelper.com/books/literature_units.htm>

discoveryschool.com: This entire web site is an excellent resource for all teachers.  It is produced by the Discovery channel and generally there are great lessons with excellent activities and resources.  This specific web page is for the novel Lord of the Flies.  Each lesson, including this one, is broken down into many sections (objectives, materials, procedures, etc.)  That is one of the strengths.  There are links to supplemental web sites; there is a section on vocabulary, complete with an audio pronunciation button; there are extension questions, and activities.  A great web page for this book, but more importantly a great web site for all teachers.

<http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/flies/>

NYTimes.com:  This web site is sponsored by the New York Times.  Because of that, the lessons evolve around a specific article or topic found in the paper.  This particular lesson is an excellent lesson that explores the nature of a class system in the US and the ability/ inability of people to move within that class system.  For me, this lesson fits perfectly in with our study of The Pearl by John Steinbeck.  In that novel, there are many class undertones.  This lesson here examines our own class system here in the US and the students' impressions about it.

<http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20050516monday.html?searchpv=learning_lessons>

Learning Resource:  This site is sponsored by CNN based out of San Francisco.  This site takes current news stories and makes them accessible to students whose reading levels are below the standard newspaper reading level.   Each page has two stories.  One is the actual story and the other is written on a much lower reading level.  All the higher vocabulary is taken out and defined.   Students can use the site as a group or individually. 

<http://literacynet.org/cnnsf/archives.html>