Lesson Plans, Activities, Printables, Editables, and More that I have Created and Made Available for Teachers

Most of the following lesson plans, activities, and other teacher resources are for sale on my teacher's marketplace; however, lesson plans marked with an asterisk (*) are free to use (under a creative commons non-commercial license).

Formative Assessments

Teachers often need to make sure their students are on track. This usually involves checking for understanding during class, creating discussion questions, quizzes, tests, and so on. Here are some original formative assessments I created to help you track your students' success.

Short English Language Test for ELLs - I created this assessment to assess my English Language learners in September. You can use it as a short, formal assessment of language skills. 

Long English Language Test for ELLs - I created this longer assessment to assess my students at the end of the semester. There are three versions.

Greek and Roman Mythology

Teaching Greek and Roman myths is a favorite topic among upper elementary and middle school students. Here are some resources I created that touch on some of my favorite topics.

*10 Words and Phrases Derived from Greek Mythology - From my blog, here are ten words and phrases popularly used in the English language.  

21 Frayer Model Set for Myth-related Literary Terms and Vocabulary - Are you teaching a unit on myth or mythology? Do you want your students to learn academic vocabulary related to this topic? Research shows that teaching vocabulary in context is the best practice for long term retention. Using Frayer models are a proven method to do this effectively in the classroom when teaching literature and non-fiction texts. Get your students actively engaged with vocabulary — and have them proudly display their creations!

 The Myth of Icarus: A Cautionary Tale from Ancient Greece -  Introduce your students to a fairly popular Greek moral tale about an ambitious inventor and his erstwhile son. I have created a 3-day lesson plan filled with activities to get your students thinking critically about this important mythological text. 

Mythology Series: The Ancient Greek Myth of King Tantalus -  Engage English Language Arts Students (grades 8-9) with the ancient Greek Myth of Tantalus — the deceiver who thought he was equal to the gods! 

Mythology Series: The Ancient Greek Myth of Sisyphus - The myth of Sisyphus is the original rolling stone. Kids will love tracking down the allusions to this extraordinary Greek hero tale. Aligned with Common Core Standards, this individual lesson pack prompts students to discuss the myth, to compare it to other works of art, to work in groups, and to complete a writing activity.

Ready-to-Go-Activity: 10 Everyday Words and Phrases in Greek Mythology  -  I updated my blog post on words and phrases from Greek myth and made it into a usable resource for teachers in the classroom.

Homesick: My Own Story by Jean Fritz

Jean is a ten-year-old American girl living in the British settlement in Hankow, China in the 1920s. In this autobiographical novel, Jean witnesses major events on the world stage through her own childlike perspective.  

Chapter One Lesson Plan Resource 

Chapter Two Lesson Plan Resource 

Chapter Three Lesson Plan Resource  

Chapter Four Lesson Plan Resource  

Chapter Five Lesson Plan Resource  

Chapter Six Lesson Plan Resource  

Chapter Seven Lesson Plan Resource 

Homesick: My Own Story Lesson Bundle  

Homesick: My Own Story Lesson Super Bundle + Google Forms

Maps and Geography Skills

My first paid teaching job was a Summer school gig in New Orleans, Louisiana. I taught Geography. Here are some lessons to get your students more geographically-aware.

*Printables: Blank World Map for Printing (with borders) - I like using this gratis, public-domain world map; it's easy to use, has borders, and makes for a good geography quiz template. 

Geography Skills Lesson: Ready-to-Use Worksheet with Blank World Map - I made this resource as a simple day one assessment of a student's knowledge of world geography. It's ready-to-go out of the box

Philosophy in the Classroom Series

One of my projects is teaching philosophy in the classroom. Every chance I get I introduce students to philosophical thinking. Here are some polished resources that are classroom-tested and guaranteed to get your class thinking.

Caught You! The Ring of Gyges from Plato's Republic* - A FREE lesson plan on justice. If you like it consider the bundle that comes with three self-grading Google Forms! 

Plato's Allegory of the Cave in Plain Language - A lesson plan on truth and reality 

Philosophy in the Classroom: Nietzsche and Bill Murray in Groundhog Day — A lesson on Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence.  

Philosophy in the Classroom: "The Parable of the Madman" by Friedrich Nietzsche The phrase "God is dead" has entered into the zeitgeist. But what does this phrase mean? And how and where does the nineteenth-century writer and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche use it? Answer these questions with your students with Stones of Erasmus's close reading and writing lesson plan resource. 

"Discuss any Moral Dilemma!" All-in-One Lesson - A lesson plan for any moral dilemma 

Empiricism versus Rationalism - A lesson plan on how we know that we know (and why)

Task Cards for Philosophy Education - "What is Philosophy?" Task Card Set (28 Cards + 2); Freedom Discussion Task Cards (16 Card Set + 2); "The Biq Questions" 44 Task Card Set 

Quotes in the Classroom Poster Series

On Boredom (from The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett) 

On Who To Bestow Your Talents (Advice from Jesus)  

On Judging Appearances (Opposing Viewpoints Discussion)

4-Lesson Quotes Bundle for Middle and High School Classroom Discussion  

Writing Graphic Organizer: Thinking About Any Quote or Textual Evidence

Reading Comprehension Resources

Reading is essential. Here are some resources to help inject some energy into any-level reader.

Five ELL Reading Comprehension Questions ("Bobby the Math Whiz" - Nonfiction) - Use this text as a reading comprehension worksheet for English Language Learners.

William Blake and Romanticism

William Blake's poetry is mystical and beautiful - and here some lessons I have created about him and his work.

William Blake's "London": Visualizing the Industrial Revolution Through Poetry - Blake's poem is evocative of a time period in history where children worked as chimney sweeps and child labor is London was commonplace - a travesty of the first stages of the Industrial Revolution.

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Why the National Endowment for the Humanities Seminars and Institutes for Summer Scholars are Amazing for Educators

The National Endowment for the Humanities will help me go back to school tuition-free for the Summer. I was selected as a Summer Scholar - which means I will join a small cohort of educators for a month of study at Amherst College in Massachusetts to study the ethics of punishment and reward. 

NEH Summer Scholars

Every year the National Endowment for the Humanities offers dozens of humanities-based programs for primary and secondary school teachers and higher education professionals. Teachers apply for the programs they want, and if selected from a national pool, are able to participate in an NEH summer seminar, landmark, or institute. The aim of the program is to put educators in an institution with great teachers, colleagues, and set with a topic - so when we return in the Fall we are hopefully enlightened, inspired, and equipped with new ideas, tools and curriculum to share with our home schools. 

"Punishment, Politics, and Culture"

I was selected to participate in a four-week Summer Seminar hosted by Professor Austin Sarat from Amherst College entitled "Punishment, Politics, and Culture". Here is a link to what we will be reading and discussing. I will come away from the seminar enriched because we'll dive into important texts (e.g., Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Book of Job from the Bible) that have shaped culture, history, and literature. The essential question of our seminar is why do we (as a society) punish - or reward - the way that we do and what does this say about our moral values? 

A community of Educators in Queens

I teach at a private, independent school in Queens. We're called Garden School and we've been in the Jackson Heights neighborhood since 1923. A few of my colleagues, James Pigman, Marcia Elkind, and Nancy Massand have participated in NEH Summer programs and they inspired me to apply. The cool thing about the NEH Summer Scholar program is that it creates a mini-community of educators who have done one or two programs and you become committed to sharing what you have learned.

Mr. Jim Pigman, an Emeritus Educator Inspired Me to be of the Hot Sauce Variety at Amherst

Mr. Pigman, who is now retired (but still very active), told me that "I am of the hot sauce variety". That's because I ate a dish of spicy crawfish in Suzhou, China (on a school trip we did together with students and other teachers back in 2017). I think he admired my spunk so I hope to bring that same zest to the Summer I'll be attending at Amherst. All of us in the program are all already linked together on an email chain and participants I will be working with have sent emails discussing what cool things we can do in an around the Amherst and Western Massachusetts region. I am looking forward to seeing the Emily Dickinson Museum.

Fun Facts:
The National Endowment for the Humanities provides opportunities like the one I am attending this Summer every year. Educators can apply for next year's programs in the Fall. Stipends of $1,200-$3,300 help cover expenses for the one- to four-week programs. I am staying on campus at Amherst. The stipend will help cover my dorm and meal expenses while I am at the college. I am grateful for this opportunity and I cannot wait to dive into the texts and meet our 2019 cohort.
What Do You Think?
Have you ever done an NEH Summer Landmark, Seminar, or Institue? I'd love to hear about your experience. Let me know in the comments.

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I created for the Humanities and English classroom

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Video Installation: Flyover Woodside, Queens (with a Church Steeple and Cross in the Foreground)

I've documented a flyover of a passenger jet gliding over Eastern Queens on its way to Laguardia Airport. It was a bright, semi-cloudy day in Woodside - a quiet neighborhood in Queens. Folks were going to church (as shown in the picture). I took this amateur video on my iPhone and later uploaded it and added a soundtrack.

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Bathroom List: There Ain't No Place to Pee in New York City (Unless You Know a Few Spots)

It's a common occurrence. You have to pee. And you're in the city. You probably don't want to risk peeing in an alley or behind a tree (although I must admit I have been forced to do that). New York City, unfortunately, has very few public places to relieve oneself. When nature calls, what are you going to do?

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

Short Film Review: Reckless (2013)

The Short Film "Reckless" - 2013 (22 minutes, in Norwegian with English subtitles)

The 2013 Norwegian short film "Reckless" is the work of director Bjørn Erik Pihlmann Sørensen and writer Einar Sverdrup. I saw the film in 2013 and passed it off as a public service announcement about the need to rein in irresponsible teenagers. But as you will notice as I write about the movie, my views have changed a bit since I last saw it. To give you a brief rundown, the movie is about a teenage girl who has to babysit her younger child-age brother - and through a series of related events tragedy strikes. I thought maybe the movie was funded by parents who want their adolescent-aged kids to take better care of their siblings. However, I recently watched it again and the short made me think more about what message it is trying to convey. I haven't read much about the movie online nor have I talked to anyone else I know who has seen it. I am going to take a critical plunge and articulate in a flat-footed way what I think the movie might be suggesting about adolescence, sexuality, and responsibility. It's also a movie about the absence of authority.

May Teacher Journal: Teacher Gonna Teach Animated GIF

Year in Review

This year has been a pretty good year (at least in terms of my own professional development, what we (meaning my students and I) accomplished in the classroom, the environment we created to spend the year together, and the relationships we fostered).

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In September, I started the year with a teaching schedule that was different from any teaching schedule I had ever been handed. I taught a Middle and High School Ethics class (a first for me), and I conducted a Research and Computer-based class with Sixth Graders - that on top of my regular duties as an English Language teacher. I also worked as an inclusion teacher, helping content-area teachers break down concepts so English Language Learners can more easily digest them (and learn them). I also took on the task of editing my school's weekly newsletter (which teachers contribute to, and I put together into a beautiful, sendable PDF document). Kids also roped me into performing in a play they wrote, and my school's Model United Nations club invited me to go with them to the Model UN conference at Cornell. I also got to chaperone a Spring Break fun trip to Nantucket Island in the great state of Massachusetts. Whew. It was a whirlwind of a year.

NEH Summer Scholar at Amherst College

This Summer, I will be a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar - I am joining a cohort of fifteen or so other educators for a month at Amherst College. We're going to study the concept of reward and punishment, combing through several texts of acclaimed World Literature. I am so excited! Teachers often don't get a chance to read carefully important texts; nor, do we get a chance to discuss texts with other teachers in a professional environment (outside of our own classrooms). Be sure to check back here to learn about the program. 

The Year is Not Finished (YET)

I am not entirely finished the year - YET. We still have this week and next week for classes, and then we have a week of final exams, and later a week of end-of-the-year meetings. But I can see the finish line. One of my colleagues has a countdown in her classroom. Everyone is ready for the Summer - kids included. This is the month where kids get sick of each other, call each other awful names, and get into altercations. What is it about May and kids not getting along with each other? I am sure there must be a research study on this topic.

Are you a teacher? How has your month been going? I'd love to hear what is going on with you. Leave us a message in the comments.

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Family History: My Mother’s Doctor is a Roselli

Mom with Dr. Eric Roselli at the Cleveland Clinic

Mom called me the other day. “Greig,” she said. “I met your cousin.” She had been in Cleveland, Ohio to visit an aortic specialist. Mom has been battling an auto-immune disorder for a decade now. The latest development has been an inflammation of her aorta which doctors have told her point to a possible aneurysm. So my mom and older brother went to see Dr. Eric Roselli. Dr. Roselli will perform surgery on her sometime in September. So I asked my mom how she knows for sure Dr. Roselli is my cousin. The surname “Roselli” is not uncommon among Italian Americans. Lake Michigan is, according to legend, filled with Roselli’s attached to cement shoes. And in the Vatican City, one can find examples of the work of Cosimo Roselli.
    Mom had a hunch; there was a connection with this particular Roselli because she told me she had a feeling he was related. She said, ”So when I asked him to tell his story he said his grandfather Ercole (Hercules in Italian) emigrated from Italy and he had had a brother named Joseph.” Mom said her eyes lit up. My grandfather, Joseph, emigrated from Italy in 1923. He had a brother named Ercole. They were separated after my grandfather came to the United States after the death of his mother and they didn’t see each other for decades until they were finally reunited as adults. The stories matched! My grandfather, when he emigrated, lived in Detroit. He was a young man, and eventually, he moved to Louisiana. Ercole finally settled in Detroit too and stayed there. So if both stories corroborate - my father and Dr. Roselli are first cousins.
    Dr. Roselli’s father is my father’s uncle. We both share a common paternal grandfather. And this Dr. Roselli will take care of my mom (who is a Roselli by marriage). Mom kept the surname even after she divorced my father twenty-five years ago. I guess she liked the name! And she was raising my two brothers and me, so it made it more comfortable when she was dealing with stuff related to us kids. She never changed the name. So this story is really about my mom who is a cancer survivor, and now she’s battling this recent inflammation of her artery. She’ll have surgery done, and the chances are good she’ll come out of it with a clean bill of health. You've got the Roselli’s on your side!

I've written about family history on my blog - check out related articles here.

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