Lila Gray instills her own love of poetry in her students by encouraging them to write original works and finding poems that express who they are. Her weekly open mic sessions create a perfect venue for building confidence and helping students find their voice while still hitting core standards and learning lifelong skills.

This video segment from Jakers! features a storyteller who tells a Pourquoi story about Anansi, the spider, a popular character in African folklore.

Percussionist Steven Angel has developed an innovative program that uses rhythm to help struggling students improve their reading fluency and comprehension. Deceptively simple -- a facilitator taps out a basic rhythm while students read aloud -- the method relaxes students, helps them focus, and is effective in after-school intervention programs as well as traditional classrooms.

This paper opens a larger conversation about what must be done to realize opportunities presented by the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and the literacy standards in other subject areas. It emphasizes the simultaneous challenges and opportunities for ELLs.The paper emphasizes that texts are approached differently for different purposes. Students need opportunities to approach texts with these varied purposes in mind. It also highlights how ELLs may be well served by opportunities to explore and justify their own textual hypotheses, even if their initial interpretations diverge from those of the teacher.

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn about the advantages and disadvantages of the two basic forms of reproduction for the living things that practice them.

The Text Evidence Analysis Scaffolded Writing Rubric was created for the CESA #1 EL OER Project. This rubric is aligned with 9th grade Common Core writing standards. It is an example of how teachers can create scaffolds using the WIDA CAN DO Descriptors. As a result, ELs of varying language levels will be able to successfully display their knowledge of the 9-12th grade Common Core writing standards.

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn how animals' physical characteristics, such as jaw structure, are directly related to the function they perform when the animal interacts with its environment.

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students study a disease outbreak and the investigation that followed to understand the role that public health workers play in protecting the communities they serve.

This video segment from WILD TV features a family that rescues and releases squirrels to their natural habitat.

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn about the varied physical and behavioral adaptations that animals rely on to help them survive changing environmental conditions, such as the arrival of winter.

Instructional expert Jim Knight visits Michael Covarrubias to observe a lesson on context clues, discuss the classroom management techniques he is using already, and share some ideas to increase student engagement. Michael and Jim discuss emphasizing effort, getting students attention before asking questions, using response cards, and planning back-up activities.

Plan ahead to avoid frustration and to ensure that your students get as much as possible out of an oral history project.

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students examine our growing waste problem and learn about strategies we can use to lessen the strain on our landfills and Earth's natural resources: reduce, reuse, recycle.

A selection of children's books is provided to help students learn about the greenhouse effect and ways humans impact the environment. The book list complements lessons and activities focused on the theme of the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The magazine integrates science and literacy learning for students in grades K-5.

In this lesson, students explore issues of accessibility as they step into their immediate communities to determine a range of physical barriers to those living with disabilities and conceptualize ways to remove some of those obstacles. The video clips provided with this lesson are from When I Walk, a film by and featuring Jason DaSilva, who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). The documentary chronicles Jason's struggle to adapt to the realities of living with MS while holding on to his personal and creative life. With Jason's body growing weaker, his spirits, and his film, get a boost from his mother's tough love and the support of Alice Cook, who becomes his wife and filmmaking partner. POV offers a lending library of DVDs that you can borrow anytime during the school year — FOR FREE! Get started by joining our Community Network.

Learn about how wild parakeets have adapted to city life in this WILD TV video segment.