middle school research lesson plans

• Research Skills

50 Mini-Lessons For Teaching Students Research Skills

Please note, I am no longer blogging and this post hasn’t updated since April 2020.

For a number of years, Seth Godin has been talking about the need to “ connect the dots” rather than “collect the dots” . That is, rather than memorising information, students must be able to learn how to solve new problems, see patterns, and combine multiple perspectives.

Solid research skills underpin this. Having the fluency to find and use information successfully is an essential skill for life and work.

Today’s students have more information at their fingertips than ever before and this means the role of the teacher as a guide is more important than ever.

You might be wondering how you can fit teaching research skills into a busy curriculum? There aren’t enough hours in the day! The good news is, there are so many mini-lessons you can do to build students’ skills over time.

This post outlines 50 ideas for activities that could be done in just a few minutes (or stretched out to a longer lesson if you have the time!).

Learn More About The Research Process

I have a popular post called Teach Students How To Research Online In 5 Steps. It outlines a five-step approach to break down the research process into manageable chunks.

This post shares ideas for mini-lessons that could be carried out in the classroom throughout the year to help build students’ skills in the five areas of: clarify, search, delve, evaluate , and cite . It also includes ideas for learning about staying organised throughout the research process.

Notes about the 50 research activities:

• These ideas can be adapted for different age groups from middle primary/elementary to senior high school.
• Many of these ideas can be repeated throughout the year.
• Depending on the age of your students, you can decide whether the activity will be more teacher or student led. Some activities suggest coming up with a list of words, questions, or phrases. Teachers of younger students could generate these themselves.
• Depending on how much time you have, many of the activities can be either quickly modelled by the teacher, or extended to an hour-long lesson.
• Some of the activities could fit into more than one category.
• Looking for simple articles for younger students for some of the activities? Try DOGO News or Time for Kids . Newsela is also a great resource but you do need to sign up for free account.
• Why not try a few activities in a staff meeting? Everyone can always brush up on their own research skills!

• Choose a topic (e.g. koalas, basketball, Mount Everest) . Write as many questions as you can think of relating to that topic.
• Make a mindmap of a topic you’re currently learning about. This could be either on paper or using an online tool like Bubbl.us .
• Read a short book or article. Make a list of 5 words from the text that you don’t totally understand. Look up the meaning of the words in a dictionary (online or paper).
• Look at a printed or digital copy of a short article with the title removed. Come up with as many different titles as possible that would fit the article.
• Come up with a list of 5 different questions you could type into Google (e.g. Which country in Asia has the largest population?) Circle the keywords in each question.
• Write down 10 words to describe a person, place, or topic. Come up with synonyms for these words using a tool like  Thesaurus.com .
• Write pairs of synonyms on post-it notes (this could be done by the teacher or students). Each student in the class has one post-it note and walks around the classroom to find the person with the synonym to their word.

• Explore how to search Google using your voice (i.e. click/tap on the microphone in the Google search box or on your phone/tablet keyboard) . List the pros and cons of using voice and text to search.
• Open two different search engines in your browser such as Google and Bing. Type in a query and compare the results. Do all search engines work exactly the same?
• Have students work in pairs to try out a different search engine (there are 11 listed here ). Report back to the class on the pros and cons.
• Think of something you’re curious about, (e.g. What endangered animals live in the Amazon Rainforest?). Open Google in two tabs. In one search, type in one or two keywords ( e.g. Amazon Rainforest) . In the other search type in multiple relevant keywords (e.g. endangered animals Amazon rainforest).  Compare the results. Discuss the importance of being specific.
• Similar to above, try two different searches where one phrase is in quotation marks and the other is not. For example, Origin of “raining cats and dogs” and Origin of raining cats and dogs . Discuss the difference that using quotation marks makes (It tells Google to search for the precise keywords in order.)
• Try writing a question in Google with a few minor spelling mistakes. What happens? What happens if you add or leave out punctuation ?
• Try the AGoogleADay.com daily search challenges from Google. The questions help older students learn about choosing keywords, deconstructing questions, and altering keywords.
• Explore how Google uses autocomplete to suggest searches quickly. Try it out by typing in various queries (e.g. How to draw… or What is the tallest…). Discuss how these suggestions come about, how to use them, and whether they’re usually helpful.
• Watch this video  from Code.org to learn more about how search works .
• Take a look at  20 Instant Google Searches your Students Need to Know  by Eric Curts to learn about “ instant searches ”. Try one to try out. Perhaps each student could be assigned one to try and share with the class.
• Experiment with typing some questions into Google that have a clear answer (e.g. “What is a parallelogram?” or “What is the highest mountain in the world?” or “What is the population of Australia?”). Look at the different ways the answers are displayed instantly within the search results — dictionary definitions, image cards, graphs etc.

• Watch the video How Does Google Know Everything About Me?  by Scientific American. Discuss the PageRank algorithm and how Google uses your data to customise search results.
• Brainstorm a list of popular domains   (e.g. .com, .com.au, or your country’s domain) . Discuss if any domains might be more reliable than others and why (e.g. .gov or .edu) .
• Discuss (or research) ways to open Google search results in a new tab to save your original search results  (i.e. right-click > open link in new tab or press control/command and click the link).
• Try out a few Google searches (perhaps start with things like “car service” “cat food” or “fresh flowers”). A re there advertisements within the results? Discuss where these appear and how to spot them.
• Look at ways to filter search results by using the tabs at the top of the page in Google (i.e. news, images, shopping, maps, videos etc.). Do the same filters appear for all Google searches? Try out a few different searches and see.
• Type a question into Google and look for the “People also ask” and “Searches related to…” sections. Discuss how these could be useful. When should you use them or ignore them so you don’t go off on an irrelevant tangent? Is the information in the drop-down section under “People also ask” always the best?
• Often, more current search results are more useful. Click on “tools” under the Google search box and then “any time” and your time frame of choice such as “Past month” or “Past year”.
• Have students annotate their own “anatomy of a search result” example like the one I made below. Explore the different ways search results display; some have more details like sitelinks and some do not.

• Find two articles on a news topic from different publications. Or find a news article and an opinion piece on the same topic. Make a Venn diagram comparing the similarities and differences.
• Choose a graph, map, or chart from The New York Times’ What’s Going On In This Graph series . Have a whole class or small group discussion about the data.
• Look at images stripped of their captions on What’s Going On In This Picture? by The New York Times. Discuss the images in pairs or small groups. What can you tell?
• Explore a website together as a class or in pairs — perhaps a news website. Identify all the advertisements .
• Have a look at a fake website either as a whole class or in pairs/small groups. See if students can spot that these sites are not real. Discuss the fact that you can’t believe everything that’s online. Get started with these four examples of fake websites from Eric Curts.
• Give students a copy of my website evaluation flowchart to analyse and then discuss as a class. Read more about the flowchart in this post.
• As a class, look at a prompt from Mike Caulfield’s Four Moves . Either together or in small groups, have students fact check the prompts on the site. This resource explains more about the fact checking process. Note: some of these prompts are not suitable for younger students.
• Practice skim reading — give students one minute to read a short article. Ask them to discuss what stood out to them. Headings? Bold words? Quotes? Then give students ten minutes to read the same article and discuss deep reading.

All students can benefit from learning about plagiarism, copyright, how to write information in their own words, and how to acknowledge the source. However, the formality of this process will depend on your students’ age and your curriculum guidelines.

• Watch the video Citation for Beginners for an introduction to citation. Discuss the key points to remember.
• Look up the definition of plagiarism using a variety of sources (dictionary, video, Wikipedia etc.). Create a definition as a class.
• Find an interesting video on YouTube (perhaps a “life hack” video) and write a brief summary in your own words.
• Have students pair up and tell each other about their weekend. Then have the listener try to verbalise or write their friend’s recount in their own words. Discuss how accurate this was.
• Read the class a copy of a well known fairy tale. Have them write a short summary in their own words. Compare the versions that different students come up with.
• Try out MyBib — a handy free online tool without ads that helps you create citations quickly and easily.
• Give primary/elementary students a copy of Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Citation that matches their grade level (the guide covers grades 1 to 6). Choose one form of citation and create some examples as a class (e.g. a website or a book).
• Make a list of things that are okay and not okay to do when researching, e.g. copy text from a website, use any image from Google images, paraphrase in your own words and cite your source, add a short quote and cite the source. 
• Have students read a short article and then come up with a summary that would be considered plagiarism and one that would not be considered plagiarism. These could be shared with the class and the students asked to decide which one shows an example of plagiarism .
• Older students could investigate the difference between paraphrasing and summarising . They could create a Venn diagram that compares the two.
• Write a list of statements on the board that might be true or false ( e.g. The 1956 Olympics were held in Melbourne, Australia. The rhinoceros is the largest land animal in the world. The current marathon world record is 2 hours, 7 minutes). Have students research these statements and decide whether they’re true or false by sharing their citations.

Staying Organised

• Make a list of different ways you can take notes while researching — Google Docs, Google Keep, pen and paper etc. Discuss the pros and cons of each method.
• Learn the keyboard shortcuts to help manage tabs (e.g. open new tab, reopen closed tab, go to next tab etc.). Perhaps students could all try out the shortcuts and share their favourite one with the class.
• Find a collection of resources on a topic and add them to a Wakelet .
• Listen to a short podcast or watch a brief video on a certain topic and sketchnote ideas. Sylvia Duckworth has some great tips about live sketchnoting
• Learn how to use split screen to have one window open with your research, and another open with your notes (e.g. a Google spreadsheet, Google Doc, Microsoft Word or OneNote etc.) .

All teachers know it’s important to teach students to research well. Investing time in this process will also pay off throughout the year and the years to come. Students will be able to focus on analysing and synthesizing information, rather than the mechanics of the research process.

By trying out as many of these mini-lessons as possible throughout the year, you’ll be really helping your students to thrive in all areas of school, work, and life.

Also remember to model your own searches explicitly during class time. Talk out loud as you look things up and ask students for input. Learning together is the way to go!

You Might Also Enjoy Reading:

How To Evaluate Websites: A Guide For Teachers And Students

Five Tips for Teaching Students How to Research and Filter Information

Typing Tips: The How and Why of Teaching Students Keyboarding Skills

8 Ways Teachers And Schools Can Communicate With Parents

10 Replies to “50 Mini-Lessons For Teaching Students Research Skills”

Loving these ideas, thank you

This list is amazing. Thank you so much!

So glad it’s helpful, Alex! 🙂

Hi I am a student who really needed some help on how to reasearch thanks for the help.

So glad it helped! 🙂

seriously seriously grateful for your post. 🙂

So glad it’s helpful! Makes my day 🙂

How do you get the 50 mini lessons. I got the free one but am interested in the full version.

Hi Tracey, The link to the PDF with the 50 mini lessons is in the post. Here it is . Check out this post if you need more advice on teaching students how to research online. Hope that helps! Kathleen

Best wishes to you as you face your health battler. Hoping you’ve come out stronger and healthier from it. Your website is so helpful.

Comments are closed.

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Research Activities For Middle School: Discussions, Tips, Exploration, And Learning Resources

February 6, 2024 //  by  Josilyn Markel

Learning to research effectively is an important skill that middle-school-aged students can learn and carry with them for their whole academic careers. The students in question will use these skills for everything from reading news articles to writing a systematic review of their sources. With increased demands on students these days, it’s never too early to introduce these sophisticated research skills. 

We’ve collected thirty of the best academic lessons for middle school students to learn about sophisticated research skills that they’ll use for the rest of their lives. 

1. Guiding Questions for Research

When you first give a research project to middle school students, it’s important to make sure that they really understand the research prompts. You can use this guiding questions tool with students to help them draw on existing knowledge to properly contextualize the prompt and assignment before they even pick up a pen. 

Learn More: Mrs. Spangler in the Middle

2. Teaching Research Essential Skills Bundle

This bundle touches on all the writing skills, planning strategies, and so-called soft skills that students will need to get started on their first research project. These resources are especially geared towards middle school-aged students to help them with cognitive control tasks plus engaging and active lessons. 

Learn More: Pinterest

3. How to Develop a Research Question

Before a middle school student can start their research time on task, they have to form a solid research question. This resource features activities for students that will help them identify a problem and then formulate a question that will guide their research project going first. 

Learn More: YouTube

4. Note-Taking Skills Infographic

For a strong introduction and/or systematic review of the importance of note-taking, look no further than this infographic. It covers several excellent strategies for taking the most important info from a source, and it also gives tips for using these strategies to strengthen writing skills. 

Learn More: Word Counter

5. Guide to Citing Online Sources

One of the more sophisticated research skills is learning to cite sources. These days, the internet is the most popular place to find research sources, so learning the citation styles for making detailed citations for internet sources is an excellent strategy. This is a skill that will stick with middle school students throughout their entire academic careers! 

Learn More: Educator’s Technology

6. Guided Student-Led Research Projects

This is a great way to boost communication between students while also encouraging choice and autonomy throughout the research process. This really opens up possibilities for students and boosts student activity and engagement throughout the whole project. The group setup also decreases the demands on students as individuals. 

Learn More: The Thinker Builder

7. Teaching Students to Fact-Check

Fact-checking is an important meta-analytic review skill that every student needs. This resource introduces probing questions that students can ask in order to ensure that the information they’re looking at is actually true. This can help them identify fake news, find more credible sources, and improve their overall sophisticated research skills. 

Learn More: Just Add Students

8. Fact-Checking Like a Pro

This resource features great teaching strategies (such as visualization) to help alleviate the demands on students when it comes to fact-checking their research sources. It’s perfect for middle school-aged students who want to follow the steps to make sure that they’re using credible sources in all of their research projects, for middle school and beyond!

9. Website Evaluation Activity

With this activity, you can use any website as a backdrop. This is a great way to help start the explanation of sources that will ultimately lead to helping students locate and identify credible sources (rather than fake news). With these probing questions, students will be able to evaluate websites effectively.

10. How to Take Notes in Class

This visually pleasing resource tells students everything they need to know about taking notes in a classroom setting. It goes over how to glean the most important information from the classroom teacher, and how to organize the info in real-time, and it gives tips for cognitive control tasks and other sophisticated research skills that will help students throughout the research and writing process. 

Learn More: Visualistan

11. Teaching Research Papers: Lesson Calendar

If you have no idea how you’re going to cover all the so-called soft skills, mini-lessons, and activities for students during your research unit, then don’t fret! This calendar breaks down exactly what you should be teaching, and when. It introduces planning strategies, credible sources, and all the other research topics with a logical and manageable flow. 

Learn More: Discover Hub Pages

12. Google Docs Features for Teaching Research

With this resource, you can explore all of the handy research-focused features that are already built into Google Docs! You can use it to build activities for students or to make your existing activities for students more tech-integrated. You can use this tool with students from the outset to get them interested and familiar with the Google Doc setup. 

13. Using Effective Keywords to Search the Internet

The internet is a huge place, and this vast amount of knowledge puts huge demands on students’ skills and cognition. That’s why they need to learn how to search online effectively, with the right keywords. This resource teaches middle school-aged students how to make the most of all the search features online. 

Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers

14. How to Avoid Plagiarism: “Did I Plagiarize?” 

This student activity looks at the biggest faux pas in middle school research projects: plagiarism. These days, the possibilities for students to plagiarize are endless, so it’s important for them to learn about quotation marks, paraphrasing, and citations. This resource includes information on all of those and in a handy flow chart to keep them right!

Learn More: Twitter

15. 7 Tips for Recognizing Bias

This is a resource to help middle school-aged students recognize the differences between untrustworthy and credible sources. It gives a nice explanation of sources that are trustworthy and also offers a source of activities that students can use to test and practice identifying credible sources. 

Learn More: We Are Teachers

16. UNESCO’s Laws for Media Literacy

This is one of those great online resources that truly focuses on the students in question, and it serves a larger, global goal. It offers probing questions that can help middle school-aged children determine whether or not they’re looking at credible online resources. It also helps to strengthen the so-called soft skills that are necessary for completing research. 

Learn More: SLJ Blogs

17. Guide for Evaluating a News Article

Here are active lessons that students can use to learn more about evaluating a news article, whether it’s on a paper or online resource. It’s also a great tool to help solidify the concept of fake news and help students build an excellent strategy for identifying and utilizing credible online sources. 

Learn More: Valencia College

18. Middle School Research Projects Middle School Students Will Love

Here is a list of 30 great research projects for middle schoolers, along with cool examples of each one. It also goes through planning strategies and other so-called soft skills that your middle school-aged students will need in order to complete such projects.

Learn More: Madly Learning

19. Teaching Analysis with Body Biographies

This is a student activity and teaching strategy all rolled into one! It looks at the importance of research and biographies, which brings a human element to the research process. It also helps communication between students and helps them practice those so-called soft skills that come in handy while researching. 

Learn More: Study All Knight

20. Top Tips for Teaching Research in Middle School

When it comes to teaching middle school research, there are wrong answers and there are correct answers. You can learn all the correct answers and teaching strategies with this resource, which debunks several myths about teaching the writing process at the middle school level. 

Learn More: Teaching ELA with Joy

21. Teaching Students to Research Online: Lesson Plan

This is a ready-made lesson plan that is ready to present. You don’t have to do tons of preparation, and you’ll be able to explain the basic and foundational topics related to research. Plus, it includes a couple of activities to keep students engaged throughout this introductory lesson.

Learn More: Kathleen Morris

22. Project-Based Learning: Acceptance and Tolerance

This is a series of research projects that look at specific problems regarding acceptance and tolerance. It offers prompts for middle school-aged students that will get them to ask big questions about themselves and others in the world around them. 

Learn More: Sandy Cangelosi

23. 50 Tiny Lessons for Teaching Research Skills in Middle School

These fifty mini-lessons and activities for students will have middle school-aged students learning and applying research skills in small chunks. The mini-lessons approach allows students to get bite-sized information and focus on mastering and applying each step of the research process in turn. This way, with mini-lessons, students don’t get overwhelmed with the whole research process at once. In this way, mini-lessons are a great way to teach the whole research process!

24. Benefits of Research Projects for Middle School Students

Whenever you feel like it’s just not worth it to go to the trouble to teach your middle school-aged students about research, let this list motivate you! It’s a great reminder of all the great things that come with learning to do good research at an early age. 

Learn More: Thrive in Grade Five

25. Top 5 Study and Research Skills for Middle Schoolers

This is a great resource for a quick and easy overview of the top skills that middle schoolers will need before they dive into research. It outlines the most effective tools to help your students study and research well, throughout their academic careers. 

Learn More: Meagan Gets Real

26. Research with Informational Text: World Travelers

This travel-themed research project will have kids exploring the whole world with their questions and queries. It is a fun way to bring new destinations into the research-oriented classroom. 

Learn More: The Superhero Teacher

27. Project-Based Learning: Plan a Road Trip

If you want your middle school-aged students to get into the researching mood, have them plan a road trip! They’ll have to examine the prompt from several angles and collect data from several sources before they can put together a plan for an epic road trip. 

Learn More: Appletastic Learning

28. Methods for Motivating Writing Skills

When your students just are feeling up to the task of research-based writing, it’s time to break out these motivational methods. With these tips and tricks, you’ll be able to get your kids in the mood to research, question, and write!

29. How to Set Up a Student Research Station

This article tells you everything you need to know about a student center focused on sophisticated research skills. These student center activities are engaging and fun, and they touch on important topics in the research process, such as planning strategies, fact-checking skills, citation styles, and some so-called soft skills.

Learn More: Upper Elementary Snapshots

30. Learn to Skim and Scan to Make Research Easier

These activities for students are geared towards encouraging reading skills that will ultimately lead to better and easier research. The skills in question? Skimming and scanning. This will help students read more efficiently and effectively as they research from a variety of sources.

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As the research skills you teach middle school students can last them all their lives, it’s essential to help them develop good habits early in their school careers.

Research skills are useful in nearly every subject, whether it’s English, math, social studies or science, and they will continue to pay off for students every day of their schooling. Understanding the most important research skills that middle school students need will help reach these kids and make a long-term difference.

The research process

It is important for every student to understand that research is actually a process rather than something that happens naturally. The best researchers develop a process that allows them to fully comprehend the ideas they are researching and also turn the data into information that is usable for whatever the end purpose may be. Here is an example of a research process that you may consider using when teaching research skills in your middle school classroom:

• Form a question : Research should be targeted; develop a question you want to answer before progressing any further.
• Decide on resources : Not every resource is good for every question/problem. Identify the resources that will work best for you.
• Gather raw data : First, gather information in its rawest form; do not attempt to make sense of it at this point.
• Sort the data : After you have the information in front of you, decide what is important to you and how you will use it. Not all data will be reliable or worthwhile.
• Process information : Turn the data into usable information. This processing step may take longer than the rest combined. This is where you really see your data shape into something exciting.
• Create a final piece : This is where you would write a research paper, create a project or build a graph or other visual piece with your information. This may or may not be a formal document.
• Evaluate : Look back on the process. Where did you experience success and failure? Did you find an answer to your question?

This process can be adjusted to suit the needs of your particular classroom or the project you are working on. Just remember that the goal is not only to find the data for this particular project, but to teach your students research skills that will help them in the long run.

Research is a very important part of the learning process as well as being useful in real-life once the student graduates. Middle school is a great time to develop these skills as many high school teachers expect that students already have this knowledge.

Students who are well-prepared as researchers will be able to handle nearly any assignment that comes their way. Finding new ways to teach research skills to middle school students need will be a challenge, but the results are well worth it as you see your students succeed in your classroom and set the stage for further success throughout their schooling experience.

You may also like to read

• Web Research Skills: Teaching Your Students the Fundamentals
• Building Math Skills in High School Students
• How to Help High School Students with Career Research
• Five Free Websites for Students to Build Research Skills
• Homework in Middle School: Building a Foundation for Study Skills
• 5 Novels for Middle School Students that Celebrate Diversity

Categorized as: Tips for Teachers and Classroom Resources

Tagged as: Engaging Activities ,  Middle School (Grades: 6-8)

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Research Lesson Plan

This lesson plan accompanies the BrainPOP topic, Research , and can be completed over several class periods. See suggested times for each section.

Students will:

Activate prior knowledge about how to do a research project.

Identify the sequence of events for conducting research.

Use critical thinking skills to analyze how and why having a focus is key to conducting research and doing a research report.

Demonstrate understanding through creative projects, such as producing a movie using research they gathered, or coding a game that challenges players to sort the different research steps.

Present projects and reflect on new understandings.

TEACHER PRE-PLANNING

For background on the Research Topic , click the Full Description link below the movie player.

The INVESTIGATE and CREATE sections of the lesson require students to use Make-a-Map, Make-a-Movie, and Creative Coding projects. Assign the Research Make-a-Map to the class in advance of the lesson. 

Approximate time: 20-25 minutes

Begin the lesson plan by activating students’ prior knowledge and making real-life connections.  Then show the movie to introduce the topic. 

• DISPLAY this Anchor Question on whiteboard and read it aloud: What are the signs of a good research question? Tell students they will investigate this question over the course of the lesson and will return to it at the end.
• ACTIVATE BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE by having pairs or small groups share with each other steps they’ve taken for doing a research project, including what has and hasn’t worked.
• READ ALOUD the description below the movie player.
• MAKE CONNECTIONS by asking students to share specific research projects they’ve worked on and what they learned from the experience. 
• WATCH the movie Research as a whole class on the whiteboard. Turn on the closed caption option to aid in comprehension.    

INVESTIGATE

Prompt students’ inquiry and critical thinking skills by having them find key details to build knowledge and understanding.

FIND EVIDENCE

• Students open their Make-a-Map Assignment and select or create a sequence map. They type the question they will investigate at the top:  What are the steps to conducting research for a research report?
• As students watch the movie again, they identify the steps for doing a research report. Evidence can include text, images, and movie clips. ADDED CHALLENGE : Prompt students to include evidence for why research isn’t always a linear process; why returning to earlier steps is sometimes a key step to conducting research. SUPPORT TIP: Help students by identifying the first step or two for doing a research report, and add it to the concept map.
• Students SUBMIT their maps when they are done.

Approximate time: 45-60 minutes

Students demonstrate their understanding by synthesizing their ideas and expressing them through one or more of the following hands-on, creative projects.  They can work individually or collaborate. Remind them to use evidence from their concept maps in their creations.

APPLY KNOWLEDGE   

• Research Memes :   Code a research meme. It can be about a research topic, the research process, or even a famous researcher.  Your meme can be funny or serious!
• A Research Tutorial : Produce a mini tutorial for classmates describing a research report you’re working on now, and the steps you are taking. Include your research question. 
• Research Steps Game : Code a game challenging players to identify when in the research process different steps happen: beginning, middle, or end.

Wrap up the lesson with student presentations and a final reflection on learning.

PRESENT : Students present their completed projects to their classmates. 

WRAP UP : Draw attention to the Anchor Question again: What are the signs of a good research question? Students answer the question using their new knowledge.

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments

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Teaching Research Skills to K-12 Students in The Classroom

Research is at the core of knowledge. Nobody is born with an innate understanding of quantum physics. But through research , the knowledge can be obtained over time. That’s why teaching research skills to your students is crucial, especially during their early years.

But teaching research skills to students isn’t an easy task. Like a sport, it must be practiced in order to acquire the technique. Using these strategies, you can help your students develop safe and practical research skills to master the craft.

What Is Research?

By definition, it’s a systematic process that involves searching, collecting, and evaluating information to answer a question. Though the term is often associated with a formal method, research is also used informally in everyday life!

Whether you’re using it to write a thesis paper or to make a decision, all research follows a similar pattern.

• Choose a topic : Think about general topics of interest. Do some preliminary research to make sure there’s enough information available for you to work with and to explore subtopics within your subject.
• Develop a research question : Give your research a purpose; what are you hoping to solve or find?
• Collect data : Find sources related to your topic that will help answer your research questions. 
• Evaluate your data : Dissect the sources you found. Determine if they’re credible and which are most relevant.
• Make your conclusion : Use your research to answer your question! 

Why Do We Need It?

Research helps us solve problems. Trying to answer a theoretical question? Research. Looking to buy a new car? Research. Curious about trending fashion items? Research! 

Sometimes it’s a conscious decision, like when writing an academic paper for school. Other times, we use research without even realizing it. If you’re trying to find a new place to eat in the area, your quick Google search of “food places near me” is research!

Whether you realize it or not, we use research multiple times a day, making it one of the most valuable lifelong skills to have. And it’s why — as educators —we should be teaching children research skills in their most primal years. 

Teaching Research Skills to Elementary Students

In elementary school, children are just beginning their academic journeys. They are learning the essentials: reading, writing, and comprehension. But even before they have fully grasped these concepts, you can start framing their minds to practice research.

According to curriculum writer and former elementary school teacher, Amy Lemons , attention to detail is an essential component of research. Doing puzzles, matching games, and other memory exercises can help equip students with this quality before they can read or write. 

Improving their attention to detail helps prepare them for the meticulous nature of research. Then, as their reading abilities develop, teachers can implement reading comprehension activities in their lesson plans to introduce other elements of research. 

One of the best strategies for teaching research skills to elementary students is practicing reading comprehension . It forces them to interact with the text; if they come across a question they can’t answer, they’ll need to go back into the text to find the information they need. 

Some activities could include completing compare/contrast charts, identifying facts or questioning the text, doing background research, and setting reading goals. Here are some ways you can use each activity:

• How it translates : Step 3, collect data; Step 4, evaluate your data
• Questioning the text : If students are unsure which are facts/not facts, encourage them to go back into the text to find their answers. 
• How it translates : Step 3, collect data; Step 4, evaluate your data; Step 5, make your conclusion
• How it translates : Step 1, choose your topic
• How it translates : Step 2, develop a research question; Step 5, make your conclusion

Resources for Elementary Research

If you have access to laptops or tablets in the classroom, there are some free tools available through Pennsylvania’s POWER Kids to help with reading comprehension. Scholastic’s BookFlix and TrueFlix are 2 helpful resources that prompt readers with questions before, after, and while they read. 

• BookFlix : A resource for students who are still new to reading. Students will follow along as a book is read aloud. As they listen or read, they will be prodded to answer questions and play interactive games to test and strengthen their understanding. 

• TrueFlix : A resource for students who are proficient in reading. In TrueFlix, students explore nonfiction topics. It’s less interactive than BookFlix because it doesn’t prompt the reader with games or questions as they read. (There are still options to watch a video or listen to the text if needed!)

Teaching Research Skills to Middle School Students

By middle school, the concept of research should be familiar to students. The focus during this stage should be on credibility . As students begin to conduct research on their own, it’s important that they know how to determine if a source is trustworthy.

Before the internet, encyclopedias were the main tool that people used for research. Now, the internet is our first (and sometimes only) way of looking information up. 

Unlike encyclopedias which can be trusted, students must be wary of pulling information offline. The internet is flooded with unreliable and deceptive information. If they aren’t careful, they could end up using a source that has inaccurate information!

How To Know If A Source Is Credible

In general, credible sources are going to come from online encyclopedias, academic journals, industry journals, and/or an academic database. If you come across an article that isn’t from one of those options, there are details that you can look for to determine if it can be trusted.

• The author: Is the author an expert in their field? Do they write for a respected publication? If the answer is no, it may be good to explore other sources.
• Citations: Does the article list its sources? Are the sources from other credible sites like encyclopedias, databases, or journals? No list of sources (or credible links) within the text is usually a red flag. 
• Date: When was the article published? Is the information fresh or out-of-date? It depends on your topic, but a good rule of thumb is to look for sources that were published no later than 7-10 years ago. (The earlier the better!)
• Bias: Is the author objective? If a source is biased, it loses credibility.

An easy way to remember what to look for is to utilize the CRAAP test . It stands for C urrency (date), R elevance (bias), A uthority (author), A ccuracy (citations), and P urpose (bias). They’re noted differently, but each word in this acronym is one of the details noted above. 

If your students can remember the CRAAP test, they will be able to determine if they’ve found a good source.

Resources for Middle School Research

To help middle school researchers find reliable sources, the database Gale is a good starting point. It has many components, each accessible on POWER Library’s site. Gale Litfinder , Gale E-books , or Gale Middle School are just a few of the many resources within Gale for middle school students.

Teaching Research Skills To High Schoolers

The goal is that research becomes intuitive as students enter high school. With so much exposure and practice over the years, the hope is that they will feel comfortable using it in a formal, academic setting. 

In that case, the emphasis should be on expanding methodology and citing correctly; other facets of a thesis paper that students will have to use in college. Common examples are annotated bibliographies, literature reviews, and works cited/reference pages.

• Annotated bibliography : This is a sheet that lists the sources that were used to conduct research. To qualify as annotated , each source must be accompanied by a short summary or evaluation. 
• Literature review : A literature review takes the sources from the annotated bibliography and synthesizes the information in writing.
• Works cited/reference pages : The page at the end of a research paper that lists the sources that were directly cited or referenced within the paper. 

Resources for High School Research

Many of the Gale resources listed for middle school research can also be used for high school research. The main difference is that there is a resource specific to older students: Gale High School . 

If you’re looking for some more resources to aid in the research process, POWER Library’s e-resources page allows you to browse by grade level and subject. Take a look at our previous blog post to see which additional databases we recommend.

Visit POWER Library’s list of e-resources to start your research!

Biography Project: Research and Class Presentation

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

Set the stage for high-interest reading with a purpose through a biography project. Students work together to generate questions they would like to answer about several well-known people, then each student chooses one of these and finds information by reading a biography from the library and doing Internet research. Students create a graphic organizer (a web) to organize the facts they have found and share what they have learned about their subjects through oral presentations. Students evaluate themselves and their classmates by using a rubric during the research and graphic organizer-creation process and by giving written feedback on one another's presentations.

Featured Resources

Bio-Cube : This planning tool can help students organize their research; use it as an extension to the lesson and have them outline the lives they' researched before writing their own biographies.

From Theory to Practice

• By using graphic organizers, students write or draw meanings and relationships of underlying ideas. This has been shown to improve students' ability to recall content.
• By summarizing information, students improve in including ideas related to the main idea, generalizing, and removing redundancy.
• By working in cooperative groups, students may increase their learning of reading strategies through peer discussion. They may also lead to better comprehension.

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
• 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

• School or classroom library with a broad selection of biographies
• Computers with Internet access and printing capability
• Index cards
• Oral Presentation Peer Feedback Form
• Oral Presentation Rubric

Student Objectives

Students will

• Learn to ask relevant questions before beginning a research project
• Learn to take notes and categorize information as they create graphic organizers
• Improve comprehension as they read and skim text for main ideas and details
• Develop research skills (book and Internet) with the purpose of teaching the class what they have learned
• Think critically as they use rubrics and written feedback to evaluate their classmates and themselves

Session 1: Before Reading

Sessions 2 to 5, session 6: after reading, sessions 7 to 9: class presentations.

Have students use their webs and the online Bio-Cube tool to plan and write biographies of the person they have researched. When they are finished, ask students to share the books with a younger class.

Student Assessment / Reflections

Possible student assessments include:

• Use the Web Rubric to grade the students' webs.
• Use the Oral Presentation Rubric to grade students' presentations based on the quality and completeness of information given.
• Observe and evaluate students' participation in group work and ability to critique other students' presentations based on their comments on the Oral Presentation Peer Feedback Form .
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50 Mini-Lessons For Teaching Students Research Skills

This post outlines 50 ideas for activities that could be done in just a few minutes (or stretched out to a longer lesson if you have the time!). You’ll find a  PDF summary below too! This post shares ideas for mini-lessons that could be carried out in the classroom throughout the year to help build students’ skills in the five areas of:  clarify, search, delve, evaluate , and  cite . It also includes ideas for learning about  staying organised  throughout the research process.

Today’s students have more information at their fingertips than ever before and this means the role of the teacher as a guide is more important than ever. Posted on  February 26, 2019 by  Kathleen Morris

Attributes: 4-5 6-8 Lesson Plan

Resource Link:  https://www.kathleenamorris.com/2019/02/26/research-lessons/

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Teaching Students How to Identify Credible Sources

Teachers can guide students toward a clear understanding of the factors that make a particular source of information reliable or not.

Growing up in the early 1990s, I caught the tail end of the age of encyclopedias. If my teacher gave me a research assignment on the causes of the Cold War, I’d pull volume C off the shelf, flip through the index to find the right page, and read through pages of small-font text until I found my answers. Because the Encyclopedia Britannica employed a team of full-time editors, the information I sifted through could largely be trusted.

In 2012, when I gave my students the same research assignment, they turned to Wikipedia, where all of the information they needed was on a single webpage in front of them. At the bottom of the Wikipedia page were sources and links directing them to mostly trusted information.

How Do We Know What’s Accurate? 

Today, in 2023, students can write their prompt into ChatGPT, and in seconds, the artificial intelligence (AI) will compile all of the information they need, pulling from potentially thousands of sources across the internet without citing a single one of them. The information is just given, and while it’s wild and impressive that this technology can complete this task, it makes no promises that the information is valid or reliable. You just have to trust that the program is accurate.

But what if the information is inaccurate? What if the AI pulls from biased sources? What if it leaves out key points? What if the sources it pulls from are written by people without the authority to write and speak on the subject? My guess is that the immediate effect will be a bunch of essays that get flagged for using AI to write them or at least get marked down for missing key points and not citing sources. 

However, the much bigger problem is the growing threat of misinformation. With the advent of social media, the internet has already become a massive source of misinformation and disinformation. With tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot, this problem will likely only grow more and more serious. This is why it’s so essential for educators to incorporate the skill of critically evaluating sources into every research assignment they give. One of the best ways to teach this vital skill is by using the CRAAP Test , first developed by the Meriam Library at California State University, Chico. 

What is the CRAAP Test?

The CRAAP Test is a litmus test to determine whether a source is... well, you know—whether it’s any good or not. The acronym stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. Teachers can teach students how to evaluate a source by considering the questions associated with each word in the acronym. 

Currency: Is the information timely? Is it out-of-date? Does it matter for what you’re researching? Has the information been updated since it was published?

Relevance: Is the source directly related to your topic? Who is the intended audience? Does it meet the needs of your work?

Authority: Is the author qualified to write on this topic? What are their credentials that make them an expert? 

Accuracy: Is the information supported by evidence? Can you find the information from more than one source? Is the writing professional?

Purpose: What is the purpose of the information? Is it to inform, teach, sell, entertain, or persuade? Is the information presented as fact or opinion?

6 Ways to Teach Students to Use the CRAAP Test

There are a number of ways to teach students how to use the CRAAP Test. You can get started by using one that I created and simply print it out, or you can use a slide show to review each letter of the acronym and instruct students to use it each time they’re selecting a source. However, I think the best learning often happens by doing. 

Try the following activities to have students practice the CRAAP Test before using it authentically in their work. 

1 . Source Showdown. Create a bracket-style competition where sources go head-to-head, and students have students use the CRAAP Test to determine which source is more reliable. Each round, students can debate their choices and defend their reasoning, advancing the winner to the next round.

2. Interactive Game. Create an interactive game using an online platform such as Kahoot or Quizlet where students use the CRAAP Test to evaluate sources. Use a mix of credible and noncredible sources to keep it interesting!

3. Source Scavenger Hunt. Create a scavenger hunt for students where they use Google to search for sources related to a specific topic. Have students use the CRAAP Test to evaluate each source they find and award points for each credible source that they identify.

4. CRAAP Race. Create a list of sources, and have students work in groups to evaluate them. The first group to correctly evaluate all the sources wins.

5. CRAAP Poster. Have students work in groups to create a poster that explains the criteria of the CRAAP Test. They can create the posters digitally or on poster boards and, after presenting them, hang them on the walls of your classroom to use as a reference throughout the school year. 

6. Debate. Assign students a controversial topic, and have them find sources to support their argument. Before the debate, have students evaluate each other’s sources using the CRAAP Test and challenge each other on the credibility of their sources during the debate.

When a Protocol Becomes Practice

Like any good teaching protocol, the objective is for students to become so well-versed in it that they no longer need the specific method when their time in the classroom is complete. When students aren’t writing research papers or finding evidence for a class project, they’ll still know what to look for when evaluating a source. They’ll understand that not everything they see on social media, in the news, or generated from AI is valid or helpful. Through using this litmus test, they’ll always know how to identify what’s valuable information and what isn’t.

Research Quest: Free Middle School Science Project-Based Learning

Home » Education Trends and Topics » Project Based Learning » Research Quest: Free Middle School Science Project-Based Learning

• By Vicki Davis
• September 19, 2023
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Are you a middle school science teacher looking to ignite your students' curiosity? Look no further than ResearchQuest, a treasure trove of free investigations that immerse students in the steps of the scientific method. From analyzing real-world artifacts to drawing their own conclusions, your students will become budding scientists. And the best part? All these resources are freely accessible from the Natural History Museum of Utah.

Research Quest sponsored this blog post. All opinions are my own.

Transform Your Classroom with Project-Based Learning and the Scientific Method

We all know that hands-on exploration is the best way to engage students in the scientific method. Whether they're examining dinosaur bones, investigating the causes behind dying tree species, or exploring predator-prey relationships, ResearchQuest offers fourteen investigations for your middle school students. They come with lesson plans, NGSS standards alignment, and real-world integration as the museum's scientists are often part of the investigation. 

Easy Access to Engaging Science Projects

When you sign up for a free teacher account, you'll receive a special code that allows your students to dive into these investigations without needing their own accounts. Each project is meticulously designed to foster critical thinking and comes with a downloadable ‘research assistant' guide, assessments, and even digital options for Google Classrooms and other Learning Management Systems (LMS).

Comprehensive Instructional Guides

Each investigation is aligned with NGSS standards and comes with a detailed lesson plan, assessments, and rubrics for evaluating student critical thinking. It's a one-stop-shop for any middle school science teacher looking to incorporate the scientific method into their curriculum.

5 Ways to Integrate ResearchQuest into Your Classroom Now

1. exploring environmental stewardship through natural and synthetic materials.

Dive into the “Artifact Investigation” to explore early ceramics and their impact on both history and ecology. This cross-curricular study is an excellent way to engage students in the scientific method while discussing the importance of environmental stewardship.

Students learn about early ceramics as well as how to understand history and how it relates to science, as well.

2. Unearth the Secrets of Dinosaur Bones

The Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry artifacts offers a fascinating look into the world of paleontology. Students can use the scientific method to identify fossilized bones and learn about ecosystem disruptions, the fossil record, and trait-based survivability through a “Dino Lab Simulator.”

3. Delve into Forest Ecosystems

The Uinta Mountains ecosystem investigations offer a deep dive into change and stability in ecosystems. Students can build their own digital food web models and explore various phenomena affecting Lodgepole pine trees, among other things.

4. Predator and Prey Bioscience Investigations

This project-based learning activity involves game-based digital manipulatives and gathering data from museum specimens. Students will explore what physical cues predators use to make eating decisions and will have the opportunity to compare specimens from museum collections.

5. Investigating Bat Diets in Changing Ecosystems​

The virtual bat dissections offer an engaging way to explore adaptability in bat diets. This investigation can spark some fantastic classroom conversations and is a great way to engage students in the scientific method.

Why Choose ResearchQuest?

ResearchQuest is more than just a set of free investigations; it's a comprehensive resource that aligns with NGSS standards and offers a wide range of project-based learning activities. It's an invaluable tool for any middle school science teacher looking to make science engaging and relatable. So why wait? Sign up today and transform your science curriculum with the power of the scientific method and project-based learning!

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “ sponsored blog post .” The company who sponsored it compensated me via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis is a full-time classroom teacher and IT Director in Georgia, USA. She is Mom of three, wife of one, and loves talking about the wise, transformational use of technology for teaching and doing good in the world. She hosts the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast which interviews teachers around the world about remarkable classroom practices to inspire and help teachers. Vicki focuses on what unites us -- a quest for truly remarkable life-changing teaching and learning. The goal of her work is to provide actionable, encouraging, relevant ideas for teachers that are grounded in the truth and shared with love. Vicki has been teaching since 2002 and blogging since 2005. Vicki has spoken around the world to inspire and help teachers reach their students. She is passionate about helping every child find purpose, passion, and meaning in life with a lifelong commitment to the joy and responsibility of learning. If you talk to Vicki for very long, she will encourage you to "Relate to Educate" or "innovate like a turtle" or to be "a remarkable teacher." She loves to talk to teachers who love their students and are trying to do their best. Twitter is her favorite place to share and she loves to make homemade sourdough bread and cinnamon rolls and enjoys running half marathons with her sisters. You can usually find her laughing with her students or digging into a book.

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Biomedical Engineering Adapted for Middle Schoolers (BEAMS) Challenge

2023 Winners:

Nanoparticles for drug delivery:

This lesson introduces middle schoolers to the concept of nanoparticle drug delivery and includes example presentations, case studies, and lab activities that are designed to be affordable and simple.

Designed by Benjamin Treutler

Download Lesson Plans :

Nanoparticles Lesson Plan

Nanoparticles Lesson Plan Slides

Genetic Telephone: A Story-Driven Journey Through the World of DNA & Gene Editing: 

This lesson marries storytelling and scientific exploration to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of genetic variations and the cutting-edge techniques such as CRISPR that allow us to modify them.

Designed by Prathic Sundararajan, Suraj Rajendran, Anika Moorjani, Harshini Manikanda Ilango

Genetic Telephone Lesson Plan

Genetic Telephone Lesson Plan Slides

Engineering Design Process and Surgical Robots

This lesson not only introduces the concept of biomedical engineering and surgical robots but also engages students in a hands-on activity where they work in teams to design, create, and test their own surgical robot prototypes. Students will learn and practice the engineering design process.

Designed by Kiara Quinn

Surgical Robots Lesson Plan

Surgical Robots Lesson Plan Slides

• Biomaterials

This lesson introduces middle school students to biomaterials and their potential applications within the medical field. Many students have a connection to the medical field and often to biomaterials that they don’t often realize, such as a broken bone, or a family member with a joint replacement. These personal connections can inspire new ideas for how to improve biomaterials and subsequently healthcare.

Designed by Katy Lydon

Biomaterials Lesson Plan

Biomaterials Lesson Plan Slides

The documents on this page may not be fully accessible. Remediation for accessibility is in progress.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions.

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) is seeking to spur and reward the development of lesson plans that introduce the concept of biomedical engineering to students in grades 6-8. Many real-world health problems have biomedical engineering solutions, but many students do not encounter biomedical engineering in the classroom until they reach college. NIBIB is seeking biomedical engineering lesson plans that spark excitement and interest in middle schoolers and focus on how a biomedical engineering approach can be used to address health care problems. At the conclusion of this Challenge, NIBIB will make the winning biomedical engineering-specific lesson plans freely and publicly available so that middle school teachers around the country can implement them in their classrooms.

Participants in this Challenge will be required to create and submit a lesson plan for at least two 90-minute classes. The lesson plan should be able to be adapted into four 45-minute classes and be customizable to different learning levels. Activities should require easy to obtain resources/materials. Lesson plans must meet at least one of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and at least one other NGSS for Physical Science that are listed in the How to Enter section of the challenge announcement on Challenge.gov .

Areas of biomedical engineering that the lesson plans could cover include, but are not limited to:

• Computed tomography (CT)
• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
• Breaking/repairing bones
• Artificial muscles
• Prosthetics
• Surgical robots
• Nucleic Acid tests
• Rapid Antigen tests
• Pill coatings
• Robotic pills
• Nanoparticles
• Smartwatches
• Pulse oximeters
• Glucose monitors
• Genetic engineering
• Tissue chips/organoids

Important Dates

• Submission Deadline EXTENDED:   October 16, 2023, 11:59 PM EDT
• Judging Period:  October 16, 2023 to December 1, 2023
• Winners Announced:   December 11, 2023

Prizes & Judging

NIBIB will award up to five prizes at up to $5,000 each to the Challenge winner(s).

Submissions will be judged and scored on:

• Clarity : Are the topics clearly explained and organized in the lesson plan? Are the learning objectives well-defined and understandable?  
• Interactivity : To what extent does the lesson plan incorporate opportunities for active student engagement? Are there interactive activities, discussions, or hands-on exercises?  
• Engagement : How likely is the lesson plan to capture and hold the attention of middle school students? Does it include elements that make the content interesting, relatable, or relevant to their lives?  
• Adaptability : How easily can the lesson plans be adapted to accommodate different student learning levels, varying class period lengths, and educational environments? Does it provide flexibility for modifications and adjustments?  
• Accuracy : How accurate are the biomedical engineering concepts presented in the lesson plan? Are they based on reliable and up-to-date information?  
• Relevancy : To what extent do the lesson plans align with the topics of biomedical engineering and the Middle School Engineering Design NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards)? Do they incorporate key concepts and skills specified in the standards?

Submit Your Lesson Plan

Click here to submit your lesson plans on Challenge.gov .

Important Information

Click here to read the complete BEAMS 2023 Announcement

Contact [email protected]

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Heath Topics

• Men's Health
• Point of Care
• Rehabilitation
• Robotic Intervention
• Theranostics
• Women's Health

Research Topics

• Artificial Intelligence
• Diagnostics
• Drug Delivery Systems
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Nanotechnology
• Nuclear Medicine
• PET imaging
• Point of Care Technologies - Diagnostics
• Regenerative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Engineering
• Surgical Tools
• Synthetic Biology
• Tissue Chips
• Ultrasound (US) diagnostic
• Ultrasound (US) therapy

Scientific Program Areas

• Division of Applied Science & Technology (Bioimaging)
• Division of Discovery Science & Technology (Bioengineering)
• Division of Health Informatics Technologies (Informatics)
• Division of Interdisciplinary Training (DIDT)

Inside NIBIB

• Director's Corner
• Funding Policies
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Save 10% today on your lessons using the code GIVEME10

Comprehensive Full Year Lesson Plans For Middle School ELA

Are you looking for full year lesson plans for middle school ELA?

Finding quality middle school lesson plans can be a challenge. Many things online are either too young for this age group or too complicated. The lesson plans listed below have been used in my Grade 7 & 8 classroom for years.

Students find them engaging, and I enjoy teaching them.  Find the month you need lesson plans for and click the link. You can also check out these full year bundles to help with your planning load.

Full Year Lesson Plans For Middle School ELA

September Lesson

Planning your first month of school lessons can be overwhelming. Read this blog post to see what I teach during the month of September for middle school ELA. September lesson plans for middle school ELA

October Lessons

Planning your second month of school lessons can be overwhelming. Read this blog post to see what I teach during the month of October for middle school ELA. October lesson plans for middle school ELA.

November Lessons 

Find engaging November Lesson Plans for Middle School ELA for reading, writing, speaking/listening and media literacy in this blog post. in this blog post. Read this blog post to see what I teach during the month of November for middle school ELA.

December Lessons

Find engaging and rigorous December lesson plans for middle school ELA in this blog post. Check out these middle school ELA lesson plans to find quality ideas for teaching in December.

January Lessons

Use these January lesson plans for middle school ELA classes to help reduce your planning workload for the time right after the holiday break. 

February Lessons

These lesson plans help bring some fun into your classroom during this cold season. 

March Lessons

Use these March lesson plans for middle school ELA classes to help reduce your planning workload for the spring break season. 

April Lessons

Help students stay engaged as the weather gets warmer with these lesson plans. 

May Lessons

Use these lesson plans to help you and your students stay focused during the end of the year.

June Lessons

Use these June lesson plans for middle school ELA classes to help reduce your workload now that the weather is getting warmer.

Stop spending all your weekends planning your lessons. Check out these Grade 7 and 8 all-in-one full year lesson plans for middle school ELA. Click on the images for more information.

Related Posts

This FREE persuasive writing unit is

• Perfect for engaging students in public speaking and persuasive writing
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By using highly-engaging rants, your students won’t even realize you’ve channeled their daily rants and complaints into high-quality, writing!

For Earth Day, Try These Green Classroom Activities (Downloadable)

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Earth Day is April 22 in the United States and the day the spring equinox occurs in some parts of the world. It’s a day to reflect on the work being done to raise awareness of climate change and the need to protect natural resources for future generations. Protecting the earth can feel like an enormous, distant undertaking to young people. To help them understand that they can play a role by focusing on their backyards or school yards, educators can scale those feelings of enormity to manageable activities that make a difference.

We collected simple ideas for teachers and students to educate, empower, and build a connection with nature so that they may be inspired to respect it and protect it. Classrooms can be the perfect greenhouse to grow future stewards of the environment.

Click to Download the Activities

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For Some Columbia Students, Protest Encampment Is Living History Lesson

Student members of Plus 86 Dance Crew rehearse a K-pop dance in preparation for graduation at Columbia University, where some students continue to maintain a protest encampment in support of Palestinians on the main campus, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in New York City, U.S., April 27, 2024. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs

By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Before students set up a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on a Columbia University lawn last week, some of them took an optional course called "Columbia 1968" about protests against the Vietnam War, a similarly galvanizing moment of campus activism.

Frank Guridy, the Columbia history professor who has taught the class since 2017, along with a couple of his students stopped by the encampment at the New York City campus on Thursday to discuss the parallels at a teach-in called "1968: Continuing the Fight." Protesters listened sitting on mats on the grass outside their tents, eating free kidney beans and rice and kosher Passover snacks off paper plates from a nearby community kitchen set up on tables under canopies.

The school administration suspended dozens of protesting students and had them arrested last week. Some of them say they are only acting on the lessons and education they have received on campus as they oppose Israel's war in Gaza.

War in Israel and Gaza

Bo Tang, a second-year undergraduate history student, said he was part of the student protesters' research group, which looked at the strategies and tactics of past and present social justice movements to "try to take lessons from them."

The group interviewed alumni involved in the 1968 protests, some found through Guridy's class, Tang said, getting them to share lessons on building support for a protest movement.

Tang and other students say classmates and professors previously agnostic about the protest showed up at the encampment after police were called in, including faculty who have donned yellow vests to help with security and safety.

Protest encampments have also appeared at colleges across the U.S. and abroad in solidarity with the Columbia students, drawing criticism from the White House, many Republican lawmakers and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who call the protesters antisemitic and intimidating to Jewish students.

Many Jewish students are among the organizers, though, and bristle at allegations of antisemitism. Over many hours spent at the encampment this week, Reuters journalists have seen students peacefully chatting, reading, eating and holding both Jewish and Muslim prayer ceremonies. There have been jazz performances, lectures, first aid courses, bouts of pro-Palestinian revolutionary chants and writing workshops. Sometimes heated but non-violent debates break out between anti-Zionist Jews and pro-Israel students visiting the camp.

A typical sign warns those in the encampment, however, to be careful in their interactions with counterprotesters: "WE DO NOT ENGAGE WITH INSTIGATORS."

'LIBERATED ZONE'

The student protesters set up the encampment at dawn on April 17 without required school permission, demanding Columbia divest from weapons manufacturers and other companies that support Israel's government and military. The protests, held in coalition with dozens of other student groups, have been led by Columbia chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, both of which the school suspended in November for an earlier unauthorized pro-Palestinian protest.

The day after the encampment was set up, Columbia President Minouche Shafik called in police, who arrested 108 of the students on trespassing charges, outraging some faculty. Students have since rebuilt the encampment, more bustling than before.

Shafik, who declined interview requests through a spokesperson, has said she called police as a last resort for rule-breaking, that the encampment has caused "rancor" on campus, and that school policy cannot be dictated by a subset of students and staff. Her administration has been holding stop-and-start negotiations with the protesting students, while steadily filling adjoining lawns with bleachers and scaffolding ahead of the school's May 15 commencement ceremony.

"We have our demands; they have theirs," she wrote in a campus-wide email.

At his teach-in, Guridy and his students told the protesters how their 1968 predecessors were outraged by Columbia disciplining six students who had protested the school's ties to weapons research, and the university's plans to build a racially segregated gym near Harlem.

The 1968 protesters occupied multiple buildings on campus and held the acting dean hostage for a day before police violently ended the occupation a week later, arresting some 700 students.

The 2024 protesters decided to instead occupy one lawn of the main Columbia campus, noting that school administrators recently designated it for protests, albeit with permission.

Maryam Alwan, a third-year Palestinian-American undergraduate student among those arrested and suspended last week, said the easily circumvented hedge-lined lawn was chosen so administrators could not accuse them of disrupting classes.

"We looked at some of the imagery of the '68 protests," Alwan said. A famous photograph of the 1968 protests shows students holding a large sign saying: "Liberated Zone." The 2024 protesters erected a similar sign over their camp, and Alwan was delighted to see the sign since spread to other campuses.

"My class is not a boot camp for revolution," Guridy said in an interview after his teach-in. "It's a history class."

He called Tang one of his "sharpest students."

Around protests, Tang still has to finish his final paper for Guridy's "Columbia 1968" class.

"It's hard to get A-pluses in the humanities classes," Tang said. "But I'm shooting for it."

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Caitlin Ochs in New York; Editing by Donna Bryson and Tom Hogue)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention

Suicide is an urgent and growing public health crisis. More than 49,000 people in the United States died by suicide in 2022. That’s one death every 11 minutes.

National Strategy for Suicide Prevention

The 2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention is a bold new 10-year, comprehensive, whole-of-society approach to suicide prevention that provides concrete recommendations for addressing gaps in the suicide prevention field. This coordinated and comprehensive approach to suicide prevention at the national, state, tribal, local, and territorial levels relies upon critical partnerships across the public and private sectors. People with lived experience are critical to the success of this work. 

 The National Strategy seeks to prevent suicide risk in the first place; identify and support people with increased risk through treatment and crisis intervention; prevent reattempts; promote long-term recovery; and support survivors of suicide loss. 

Four strategic directions guide the National Strategy:

Strategic Direction 1: Community-Based Suicide Prevention

Goal 1: Establish effective, broad-based, collaborative, and sustainable suicide prevention partnerships.

Goal 2: Support upstream comprehensive community-based suicide prevention.

Goal 3: Reduce access to lethal means among people at risk of suicide.

Goal 4: Conduct postvention and support people with suicide-centered lived experience.

Goal 5: Integrate suicide prevention into the culture of the workplace and into other community settings.

Goal 6: Build and sustain suicide prevention infrastructure at the state, tribal, local, and territorial levels.

Goal 7: Implement research-informed suicide prevention communication activities in diverse populations using best practices from communication science.

Strategic Direction 2: Treatment and Crisis Services

Goal 8: Implement effective suicide prevention services as a core component of health care.

Goal 9: Improve the quality and accessibility of crisis care services across all communities.

Strategic Direction 3: Surveillance, Quality Improvement, and Research

Goal 10: Improve the quality, timeliness, scope, usefulness, and accessibility of data needed for suicide-related surveillance, research, evaluation, and quality improvement.

Goal 11: Promote and support research on suicide prevention.

Strategic Direction 4: Health Equity in Suicide Prevention

Goal 12: Embed health equity into all comprehensive suicide prevention activities.

Goal 13: Implement comprehensive suicide prevention strategies for populations disproportionately affected by suicide, with a focus on historically marginalized communities, persons with suicide-centered lived experience, and youth.

Goal 14: Create an equitable and diverse suicide prevention workforce that is equipped and supported to address the needs of the communities they serve.

Goal 15: Improve and expand effective suicide prevention programs for populations disproportionately impacted by suicide across the life span through improved data, research, and evaluation.

Federal Action Plan

The Federal Action Plan identifies more than 200 actions across the federal government to be taken over the next three years in support of those goals. These actions include:

• Evaluating promising community-based suicide prevention strategies
• Identifying ways to address substance use/overdose and suicide risk together in the clinical setting
• Funding a mobile crisis locator for use by 988 crisis centers
• Increasing support for survivors of suicide loss and others whose lives have been impacted by suicide

These actions will be monitored and evaluated regularly to determine progress and success, and to further identify barriers to suicide prevention.

Get Involved

Join the conversation. Everyone has a role to play in preventing the tragedy of suicide. Find social media material, templates, and other resources to support and participate in the shared effort.

Read the press release

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