This is the create-a-country project which requires students – upper elementary, middle, or high school – to demonstrate fundamental geography skills. I mention it is a scalable assignment. Simply, there are different versions of this two-part assignment here: an upper elementary school assignment, a middle school assignment, and a high school assignment. Of course, you can mix-and-match to fit the needs of your classes. Both parts of this assignment require students to think critically to earn full credit. The first part of the assignment requires them to define their country’s unique characteristics. The second part is a map-making assignment in which they take the displayable characteristics from part one and illustrate them on a blank piece of paper. This can be a very powerful and engaging project! I have used this assignment with success in a few ways. Sometimes, I use only the map-making part of the assignment to determine what my students already knew about map-reading skills. Another time, I used the definition assignment to reinforce an introductory unit on physical and cultural geography. I have also combined both parts of the assignment as a unit-ending project. I find this project asks students to think critically about the many characteristics that make up a country. This packet contains the following: •Two assignments-in-one: a definition assignment which requires detailed, thoughtful answers and a map-making assignment. •There are three versions of the definition part of the assignment. These have been built to scale. Consider using the first version in an upper elementary classroom, the second version in a middle school classroom, and the third version in a high school classroom. •Five lesson extension ideas. •Two rubrics you may consider using to evaluate each part of the project.

The Create Your Own Culture Project will give students hands-on practice working with concepts that are sometimes difficult to understand. What is a culture? What are culture traits? These are questions that students may struggle to define. If they are given the opportunity to create their own culture full of vibrant culture traits, I believe these concepts will be easier to master. Throughout this project, students are challenged to create unique characteristics and explain them thoroughly. There are other parts in which students must draw their creations. If used in its entirety, this can be a very powerful and engaging assignment! Of course, depending on your instructional goals and how much time you have available to you will also determine how much of the packet you may wish to use. Nothing in the packet is numbered – and for good reason! – so that you can mix-and-match handouts to meet specific goals. A complete project will give students the most immersive experience, but a handful of pages will also prove beneficial. A word of advice before you start: this assignment works best when students are required to take it seriously. They are asked to justify their answers in the assignment to cut down on “nonsense answers.” What about an extension idea? Consider displaying all of these projects displayed with colorful images and bold lettering on a poster board or bulletin board display. You might even host a multicultural fair in your classroom in which students present and explain the cultures they have created. What fun! If you should try this, would you please email me a photo or two of the finished work? I love seeing examples of how the assignments I write are used in the classroom.

This assignment piece allows students to create a social network account for a character in any story, play, or novel! We hear a lot these days about how our students enjoy communicating with one another on sites like Facebook, Foursquare, Tumblr, and Twitter. This assignment is essentially a 21st century character analysis assignment as a “mock social network.” Students must imagine that the character they are working with has a profile where they post their thoughts, concerns, activities, and more. There have been many creative ways to teach literature over the years including mock newspapers, mock trials, and the like. This particular project puts a 21st century spin on those assignments and allows students to express themselves in a familiar medium. Students may role-play as a character and update “status updates” as if they were the character. They must write updates in a way that demonstrates what they know about each character and/or how the character impacts the work of literature. For example, a student analyzing Romeo & Juliet might role-play as Romeo and post some of his deepest concerns about the Montague-Capulet conflict on his social networking page, while a student playing Juliet might make comments about her mother’s cold indifference on hers. A student might imagine Friar Laurence’s status updates as he thinks about ways to help Romeo and Juliet, while another student might consider writing from the perspective of the free-spirited Mercutio or the warm-hearted Nurse.

The Oregon Trail R.A.F.T. Creative Writing Project is an excellent assignment to use to wrap up a lesson about this famous moment in American History. It is also a great idea if you wish to make a unit multidisciplinary: you can combine social studies and language arts into a fun, challenging creative writing project! What is a R.A.F.T., you might ask? R.A.F.T. is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. R.A.F.T.s provide rigor, flexibility, and variety. A R.A.F.T. can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres or types of writing to create one of several products including a letter, a television commercial, a journal entry, and several more. I define this further in the packet. This packet includes: (1) the R.A.F.T. assignment sheet; (2) a Ready your R.A.F.T. graphic organizer; (3) a Show, Don’t Tell graphic organizer; (4) a Planning My First Draft graphic organizer; (5) a Revising My Draft graphic organizer; (6) a Peer Review Checklist; (7) a Grading Rubric; (8) and a Ticket-Out-the-Door summarizing exit slip. Please see the preview! Why are RAFTS wonderful for reading comprehension assessment and writing projects? (1) They require higher-order thinking skills: students must role-play as the character they choose and utilize unique character traits to write a convincing response. (2) They are extremely difficult to plagiarize or copy from the Internet. This is NOT a basic report. Students must synthesize key details and create a brand new piece of writing. (3) As a result, students will emerge from the writing project with a much better understanding of the assigned reading. After all, they must demonstrate mastery in the project. Consider purchasing it today!

The First Thanksgiving R.A.F.T. Creative Writing Project is an excellent assignment to use to wrap up a lesson about this famous moment in American History. I wrote this project using the more accurate version of this historical moment, so please see the FULL PREVIEW before you buy. This R.A.F.T. is also a great idea if you wish to make a unit multidisciplinary: you can combine social studies and language arts into a fun, challenging creative writing project! What is a R.A.F.T., you might ask? R.A.F.T. is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. R.A.F.T.s provide rigor, flexibility, and variety. A R.A.F.T. can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres or types of writing to create one of several products including a letter, a television commercial, a journal entry, and several more. I define this further in the packet. This packet includes: (1) the R.A.F.T. assignment sheet; (2) a Ready your R.A.F.T. graphic organizer; (3) a Show, Don't Tell graphic organizer; (4) a Planning My First Draft graphic organizer; (5) a Revising My Draft graphic organizer; (6) a Peer Review Checklist; (7) a Grading Rubric; (8) and a Ticket-Out-the-Door summarizing exit slip. Please see the preview! Why are RAFTS wonderful for reading comprehension assessment and writing projects? (1) They require higher-order thinking skills: students must role-play as the character they choose and utilize unique character traits to write a convincing response. (2) They are extremely difficult to plagiarize or copy from the Internet. This is NOT a basic report. Students must synthesize key details and create a brand new piece of writing. (3) As a result, students will emerge from the writing project with a much better understanding of the assigned reading. After all, they must demonstrate mastery in the project. Consider purchasing it today!

The French & Indian War R.A.F.T. Creative Writing Project is an excellent assignment to use to wrap up a lesson about this famous moment in American History. This R.A.F.T. is also a great idea if you wish to make a unit multidisciplinary: you can combine social studies and language arts into a fun, challenging creative writing project! What is a R.A.F.T., you might ask? R.A.F.T. is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. R.A.F.T.s provide rigor, flexibility, and variety. A R.A.F.T. can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres or types of writing to create one of several products including a letter, a television commercial, a journal entry, and several more. I define this further in the packet. This packet includes: (1) the R.A.F.T. assignment sheet; (2) a Ready your R.A.F.T. graphic organizer; (3) a Show, Don't Tell graphic organizer; (4) a Planning My First Draft graphic organizer; (5) a Revising My Draft graphic organizer; (6) a Peer Review Checklist; (7) a Grading Rubric; (8) and a Ticket-Out-the-Door summarizing exit slip. Please see the preview! Why are RAFTS wonderful for reading comprehension assessment and writing projects? (1) They require higher-order thinking skills: students must role-play as the character they choose and utilize unique character traits to write a convincing response. (2) They are extremely difficult to plagiarize or copy from the Internet. This is NOT a basic report. Students must synthesize key details and create a brand new piece of writing. (3) As a result, students will emerge from the writing project with a much better understanding of the assigned reading. After all, they must demonstrate mastery in the project.

The Lewis & Clark Expedition R.A.F.T. Creative Writing Project is an excellent assignment to use to wrap up a lesson about this famous moment in American History. This R.A.F.T. is also a great idea if you wish to make a unit multidisciplinary: you can combine social studies and language arts into a fun, challenging creative writing project! What is a R.A.F.T., you might ask? R.A.F.T. is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. R.A.F.T.s provide rigor, flexibility, and variety. A R.A.F.T. can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres or types of writing to create one of several products including a letter, a television commercial, a journal entry, and several more. I define this further in the packet. This packet includes: (1) the R.A.F.T. assignment sheet; (2) a Ready your R.A.F.T. graphic organizer; (3) a Show, Don't Tell graphic organizer; (4) a Planning My First Draft graphic organizer; (5) a Revising My Draft graphic organizer; (6) a Peer Review Checklist; (7) a Grading Rubric; (8) and a Ticket-Out-the-Door summarizing exit slip. Please see the preview! Why are RAFTS wonderful for reading comprehension assessment and writing projects? (1) They require higher-order thinking skills: students must role-play as the character they choose and utilize unique character traits to write a convincing response. (2) They are extremely difficult to plagiarize or copy from the Internet. This is NOT a basic report. Students must synthesize key details and create a brand new piece of writing. (3) As a result, students will emerge from the writing project with a much better understanding of the assigned reading. After all, they must demonstrate mastery in the project. Consider purchasing it today!

The Declaration of Independence R.A.F.T. Creative Writing Project is an excellent assignment to use to wrap up a lesson about this famous moment in American History. This R.A.F.T. is also a great idea if you wish to make a unit multidisciplinary: you can combine social studies and language arts into a fun, challenging creative writing project! What is a R.A.F.T., you might ask? R.A.F.T. is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. R.A.F.T.s provide rigor, flexibility, and variety. A R.A.F.T. can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres or types of writing to create one of several products including a letter, a television commercial, a journal entry, and several more. I define this further in the packet. This packet includes: (1) the R.A.F.T. assignment sheet; (2) a Ready your R.A.F.T. graphic organizer; (3) a Show, Don't Tell graphic organizer; (4) a Planning My First Draft graphic organizer; (5) a Revising My Draft graphic organizer; (6) a Peer Review Checklist; (7) a Grading Rubric; (8) and a Ticket-Out-the-Door summarizing exit slip. Please see the preview! Why are RAFTS wonderful for reading comprehension assessment and writing projects? (1) They require higher-order thinking skills: students must role-play as the character they choose and utilize unique character traits to write a convincing response. (2) They are extremely difficult to plagiarize or copy from the Internet. This is NOT a basic report. Students must synthesize key details and create a brand new piece of writing. (3) As a result, students will emerge from the writing project with a much better understanding of the assigned reading. After all, they must demonstrate mastery in the project. Consider purchasing it today!

The California Gold Rush R.A.F.T. Creative Writing Project is an excellent assignment to use to wrap up a lesson about this important moment in American history and California history. This R.A.F.T. is also a great idea if you wish to make a unit multidisciplinary: you can combine social studies and language arts into a fun, challenging creative writing project! What is a R.A.F.T., you might ask? R.A.F.T. is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. R.A.F.T.s provide rigor, flexibility, and variety. A R.A.F.T. can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres or types of writing to create one of several products including a letter, a television commercial, a journal entry, and several more. I define this further in the packet. This packet includes: (1) the R.A.F.T. assignment sheet; (2) a Ready your R.A.F.T. graphic organizer; (3) a Show, Don’t Tell graphic organizer; (4) a Planning My First Draft graphic organizer; (5) a Revising My Draft graphic organizer; (6) a Peer Review Checklist; (7) a Grading Rubric; (8) and a Ticket-Out-the-Door summarizing exit slip. Please see the preview! Why are RAFTS wonderful for reading comprehension assessment and writing projects? (1) They require higher-order thinking skills: students must role-play as the character they choose and utilize unique character traits to write a convincing response. (2) They are extremely difficult to plagiarize or copy from the Internet. This is NOT a basic report. Students must synthesize key details and create a brand new piece of writing. (3) As a result, students will emerge from the writing project with a much better understanding of the assigned reading. After all, they must demonstrate mastery in the project.

This assignment is titled "Let's Explore Mexico! Use a Map to Find Cities, Landforms, States, Bodies of Water and More." This assignment includes 20 questions that require students to analyze a map of Mexico for boundaries and borders, major cities, landforms, and bodies of water. This would make a great introduction to middle school students preparing to study Mexico for the first time in either a World Languages class or a geography class. You might even consider it a "substitute assignment" and leave it for a substitute teacher on a day you are away from the classroom. This assignment works well as an individual assignment or as a partner assignment.

This activity will provide a good warm-up activity for the beginning of a unit on map skills, an additional practice for quick finishers, and more. Students will create a mental map of their school, their neighborhood, or their home. A mental map is a map you create in your mind of a familiar place. You have been creating these kinds of maps to navigate from place-to-place since you were very young. Think of it like a drawing of a place you carry around in your mind. If you can visualize a place or location in your mind, you have a strong understand of mental mapping skills already. For example, you have a strong map of your school in your mind if you can walk from one part of your neighborhood to another without asking for help. In this activity, you will draw a mental map on a piece of paper. You may draw a mental map of your school, your neighborhood, or your home. The activity comes with a checklist to guide students when they create their maps.

What’s on the Menu? is one of my favorite ways of introducing my students to different cultures around the world and begin thinking critically about how people interact with their environments and vice versa. What better way to do so than with food? Here is what is expected of students in this assignment: Through an intensive, research-based study, students will learn about cultural similarities and differences around the world, particularly the foods people eat. The final project may provide a unique and fascinating study of the geography, history, economic, religious, and cultural factors that influence cuisine around the world. This assignment works best when tied to a map study or long-range unit of study that allows students to see how people influence their environments and how their environments influence them. The project should require students to provide thoughtful answers to questions about how, why, and where culinary interests develop. This packet contains the following: •A universal menu template that students can use to research ANY country’s cuisine. It is color-heavy, and if your school or classroom budget does not allow printing of heavy images, I have provided an alternative that will require less ink and copier toner. •The aforementioned printer-friendly menu template for any international menu. I have also included several individualized menus for the following nations: Brazil, France, Greece, India, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, and Thailand. •Three lesson extension ideas. •A rubric you may consider using to evaluate the project.

This assignment is titled "Let's Explore Canada! Use a Map to Find Canadian Provinces, Territories, Cities, Landforms, and Bodies of Water." This assignment includes 20 questions that require students to analyze a map of Canada for boundaries and borders, major cities, landforms, and bodies of water. Here are two sample questions: "Which river forms part of the border between Ontario and the American state of New York?" and "What is the name of Canada's southernmost province?" I also included two basic mapping assignments: students must label maps of the provinces and territories, and the provincial and territorial capital cities. This would make a great introduction to elementary students preparing to study Canada for the first time. It would also work well in any higher elementary or middle school classroom as map skills are still critical needs in these areas. You might even consider it a "substitute assignment" and leave it for a substitute teacher on a day you are away from the classroom. This assignment works well as an individual assignment or as a partner assignment.

“Macbeth: The Social Network” is an excellent way to bring differentiated instruction to the classroom for a complicated Shakespearean play. We hear a lot these days about how our students enjoy communicating with one another on sites like Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. This project is essentially a character analysis assignment in the form of a “mock social network.” Students must imagine that characters from Macbeth have social networking pages where they post their thoughts, concerns, activities, motivations, and more. There have been many creative ways to teach Macbeth over the years including mock newspapers, mock trials, and the like. This project puts a 21st-century spin on those assignments and allows students to express themselves in a familiar medium. This packet includes pages for seven characters in Macbeth. Students may role-play as any of them (or all of them) and write “status updates” as if they were the characters. They must write updates in a way that imaginatively demonstrates their knowledge of the character. Ideas for doing so might include interpreting the character’s motivations, justifying his/her actions, inventing private thoughts, and more. The idea however must apply to all: we must find this character’s social networking profile “believable”; the student must stay within character to prove their knowledge of the play. For example, a student might role-play as Macduff and post thoughts that reflect his impulsiveness, while a student role-playing as Lady Macbeth might make comments reflecting her constantly twisting mindscape. A student might take artistic liberty to imagine Malcolm’s thoughts on being king, while another student might get really wild and explore what it’s like to run a joint social media account as the three witches. (That one will be wild, right?) Consider purchasing the assignment today!

Pirate Pete is back, me hearties! The loveable goofball pirate is rip-roarin' and ready to teach your kiddies about Christmas traditions in different parts of the world. Join the funny pirate in a discussion about Christmas traditions in Finland, Australia, the Bahamas, Germany, and Japan. Plus, ol' Pete introduces students to a wild and wonderful place called Christmas Island, which is located in the Pacific Ocean. This six-page reading assignment also features a guided reading handout and four assignments to keep your students engaged around the holidays! No small feat, right? Preview before you buy!

The following 25 prompts worked wonderfully in my language arts classes. These prompts will provide narrative and descriptive writing opportunities. For instance, there is a prompt in this packet that requires students to think about a typical Saturday and recount sequential events descriptively. Another prompt will require students to describe a perfect lunch, which will require them to think critically and logically in a creative passage. There are several possibilities here, but the real bonus is the full-color image that accompanies each question to inspire deeper thinking and colourful language choices. I have alternated prompts in this packet to allow for daily or weekly instruction possibilities. Thus, each narrative prompt is followed by a descriptive writing prompt. Why? In my classroom, I passed this assignment out as a classroom packet and one that we would use throughout the school year so students could track progress and see how they had developed as writers from the first day to the last. Please let me know how you use these prompts in your classroom.

Virtual tours and field trips provide students with opportunities they may not get to experience otherwise. Where else can you “take a trip” to see Sistine Chapel, the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, or the African grasslands – all in one day? These tools may also challenge students to think critically about the places they visit. For example, a virtual trip to Pompeii requires students to consider the quality of life in an ancient city. A trip to Chichen Itza will allow them to appreciate and question the Mayas design decisions. Simply, virtual field trips can spark your students’ interest and motivate their learning in a specific content area. The following websites are worth considering for virtual field trips. Some are built as all-inclusive virtual trips with text and audio; others provide only imagery which can be adapted to fit the needs of a lesson.

This PowerPoint presentation is titled “The Great Wall of China - Let’s Take a Tour!” This is one of a handful of projects I have written about ancient civilizations. The complete assignment includes (1) the PowerPoint presentation, (2) a KWL chart to activate the lesson, (3) 15 questions you can use to guide the lesson or use as a quiz afterwards, and (4) a handful of research prompts you might use to extend the lesson. This particular PowerPoint is chock full of quality information about the Great Wall of China including historical information about the major dynasties that build the walls, details about how the walls were constructed, statistics about its size, and much more. Of course, I have also filled the presentation with high-quality color photos and clickable links to some key vocabulary terms and official Chinese history websites. If you have access to Google Earth and YouTube, you will also find clickable links embedded in the document so you can take your students on a virtual field trip to see the Great Wall of China from above (Google Earth) and to a classroom-safe video (YouTube) offering a first-person perspective so your students can feel what it is like to climb some of the steepest parts of the wall. I envision using this PowerPoint presentation in a handful of ways: as either a classroom instruction tool on a SmartBoard or as a self-guided PowerPoint that students can access as a homework assignment.

The "Endangered Animals Television Commercial" Project allows students to demonstrate their knowledge about endangered animals in a unique way. In small groups or individually, students will select an endangered animal for research. They will then plan, research, write, and simulate a complete television commercial or public service announcement about the animal they have chosen. They will present their commercials to the class. If you have a camcorder handy, this project makes for great fun for recording and sharing at an open house or similar public function!

Would you like to enliven history with a fun, challenging writing project? The Black Death RAFT Writing Project contains a RAFT writing project for the history classroom. This project may be used as a creative research project or as a summarizing assignment to end a unit of study on the Middle Ages or another aspect of European History. What is a RAFT, you might ask? RAFT is an acronym that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. It is a powerful writing strategy that provides rigor, flexibility, and variety. A RAFT can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres of writing to create one of several products. In this project, students have four writing options to choose from. They may role-play as a Sicilian authority figure, a Venetian trader, an English nurse, or a French tailor.