ORC Resource Types

Discipline: English Language Arts

Professional Commentary: This lesson helps students focus on the power of specific nouns and vivid verbs in their writing. To review specific nouns, students write a description of their bedrooms at the "peak of messiness." During revision, they pay special attention to adding specific nouns from a list they have brainstormed....

Discipline: English Language Arts

Professional Commentary: In this mini-lesson, students learn to use more vivid and descriptive language in their writing by exploring the use of dialogue tags such as “he said” or “she answered” in picture books and novels. Students discuss the purpose, form, and style of dialogue....

Discipline: English Language Arts

Professional Commentary: Learning is most effective when linked to what is already known. This lesson guides students through the creation of their family timeline and begins with the students' own concrete memories of family events. Those events are then linked to a wider, historical view of their family based on interviews with family members. The students then assign a mathematical value...

Discipline: English Language Arts

Professional Commentary: Most letter names are similar to the sounds they make, so knowing letter names is helpful in the development of letter-sound recognition.  Kindergarten programs often include letter-recognition fluency as an important part of their early literacy program.  This lesson consists of three 60 minute sessions, designed to make letter-recognition effective while keeping it fun through a variety of...

Discipline: English Language Arts

Professional Commentary: One of the most effective ways to engage English-language learners (ELLs) and help them comprehend and read English is through repeated readings and retellings of appealing bilingual picture books. Using Con Mi Hermano/With My Brother by Eileen Roe, this lesson describes how to use the text to support English language learners....

Discipline: English Language Arts

Professional Commentary: The graphic novel Persepolis is set in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. The changes that the events during that time led to are unknown to most students, but the repercussions of that time are still being felt throughout the world....

Discipline: English Language Arts

Professional Commentary: This lesson is based on The Odyssey and the young-adult novel Running Out of Summer—a contemporary epic by Peter Morgan that follows the protagonist’s journey from Atlanta to Santa Monica to attend school. Students select one character from each as the basis for a comparison-contrast graphic organizer....

Discipline: English Language Arts

Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students select five important events in their lives and write summaries of them. Next, they carefully select songs and images that represent each event. After developing storyboards, students create PowerPoint audiovisual autobiographies which they present to their peers in class....

Discipline: English Language Arts

Professional Commentary: Whether making tapes and custom CDs for friends or downloading music through one of the many music sharing systems available on the Internet, most students are aware of the ways that music can be distributed—and some have probably participated in sharing music themselves. This lesson takes advantage of students’ interest in music and audio sharing as...

Discipline: Science

Professional Commentary: This promising practice lesson engages students in thinking about the historical development of the scientific method as well as photosynthesis. Students are asked to design an experiment that replicates van Helmont's and are then asked to improve upon the procedure by considering how light is involved in photosynthesis....