Primary Source Activities

Want to improve students' spelling quickly and effectively? This complete spelling program is tailored to four levels of ability, and can be administered in only 20 minutes of class time a week. Spelling is a valuable and crucial skill, and one that can be improved with practice. But with increasingly challenging expectations for middle school students and a pivot towards Common Core skills, it can be difficult to fit spelling into your curriculum. This complete spelling curriculum will allow yo

In a structured academic controversy, students are assigned a position to research, and support through argument with peers. Each side refers to the same text to support their side of the argument. After arguing their sides, both groups then discuss to reach a consensus on what really happened. This structured academic controversy lesson presents students with primary source documents (edited for middle school) on the Boston Massacre. Students use these as evidence to argue that either the radi

These questions can be given in advance to students to prepare them for an in-class Socratic Seminar on the documentary novel "Nothing But the Truth," by Avi. Students are given one of two sets of questions to allow for two seminars, each with 10-16 participants. The first discussion focuses on the events of the novel, while the second asks students to consider the author's message. By coming to the socratic seminar with one of these worksheets complete, students will be more able to contribute