In this poem, the speaker sees a man carrying his son across the street and is struck by the tenderness the man displays for the child. The speaker realizes that humanity must cloak itself in this same caring nature.
In this personal narrative from Living Up the Street: Narrative Recollections, Gary Soto recounts a moment when he began to understand Frankie T., a boy who bullied him in the fifth grade.
In this article, Disability Rights and Resources outlines appropriate behavior, conversational cues, and common courtesies to internalize and enact when spending time with a person with a disability.
This text explores the relationship between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, two self-made men whose lives intersected near the end of America's Civil War.
Felipe Morales' telling account of an encounter with a blind woman on the streets of Washington, D.C. was recorded for This I Believe. The NPR project features brief personal essays in which people from diverse backgrounds discuss how their values affect their daily lives.
In his 1941 State of the Union Address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined four fundamental human freedoms—the freedom of speech, of worship, from want, and from fear—for the United States and the rest of the world.
In this radio segment, Studs Terkel remembers the first time he saw a community in action accomplish something. This moment shaped his belief that the individual is strengthened by joining a group and we make progress as a society when we join together.
Michael and Cathy Hoffman recount how their son with Down syndrome is included on the middle school soccer team and how his teammates and opponents show support in a way that leads to his first goal.
This excerpt from Anne Frank’s writings pleads for empathy and understanding for others, and seeks to promote kindness and fairness by calling individuals to action.
This short film portrays a man in need, seated on the edge of a busy street with a sign reading: "I'm blind. Please help." When a woman stops to rewrite the message on his sign, she shifts the perception of passersby.
Challenge the Text helps students ask and answer their own text-dependent questions by taking multiple perspectives and uncovering assumptions and biases within the text.
Shared reading combines aspects of guided reading and read-aloud strategies. During shared reading, a teacher or proficient student reads the text aloud, pausing at pre-selected moments to discuss content and analyze the text. This strategy facilitates close reading of a complex text in small or whole group settings.
Thinking notes are text annotations (highlights, underlines or symbols made on the text or in the margins) that document student thinking during reading. Depending on how you structure the task, these notes can indicate agreement, objection, confusion or other relevant reactions to the text.
A guide to help students interpret, analyze and evaluate information encountered in a variety of media formats. Use this guide with the spoken and performed texts included in the Perspectives anthology.
A structured discussion in which students examine issues and respond to open-ended questions about a text. Students use dialogue rather than debate to communicate with each other.
A strategy for organizing medium- to large-group discussions. Students are separated into an inner and outer circle. In the inner circle, or fishbowl, students have a text-based discussion; students in the outer circle listen to the discussion and take notes.
Estimated time Two to three weeks Why? One of the ways young students become invested in the democratic process is by become empowered advocates for civic participation in their local communities. When younger students
Select the parts of your Learning Plan you'd like to print. If your Tasks or Strategies have PDF handouts, they'll need to be printed separately. These are listed on the left side of each Task or Strategy page.
