Introduction to Character Foils
During this lesson, students will view video clips and read texts that have character foils examples. Students will complete a graphic organizer with evidence that supports their identification of foil characters. Once complete, students will use the information from the graphic organizer to discuss character foils.
Mendelian Genetics Using Monohybrids
Students will work collaboratively through a fictitious, real-world scenario to determine the probability of each breeding pair of dogs producing offspring with the desired trait for a fictitious client.
Metacognitive Approaches to Student-based Learning
In this lesson, students will learn how to make complex inferences and draw conclusions about a work of literary fiction using a combination of text evidence and background knowledge. Using a graphic organizer and a short story, students will record both text evidence and their prior knowledge, and combine these elements to make an inference about the character.
2 Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment: Administering and Interpreting Results
This binder details how to score and interpret the results of the Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA). This course is Unit 4 of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy (TALA). These materials are available for view only; no credit or certificate is provided.
Sparking Curiosity and Wonder: Making Complex Inferences
Students will learn how to activate their curiosity and use questioning strategies to make complex inferences and connections across texts.
Proving an Ecosystem’s Health Through Succession
Students engage in viewing day three of ecosystem changes in lab groups to determine if the ecosystem is healthy or unhealthy based on scientific data and factors.
Themes in Hamlet
Students will make inferences about themes from the play, use textual evidence from the play to support their inferences using the CASE model, and will make a praise and criticism for peer answers.
How Authors Develop Complex Yet Believable Characters in Drama by Contrasting Characters
The students will identify characteristics of characters from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, explain why the characters are foils to each other, and use text evidence to support their understanding.
DNA Sequencing
In this lesson, students will investigate how gene expression is a regulated process controlled by DNA and the interpretations of codons through translation.
Producing Plump Produce
In collaborative groups, the students investigate the transport of water within potato cells placed in various tonicity solutions.
Teacher explains the task to the students
Energy Transfer in an Ecosystem
All matter contains energy. Energy can be transferred from one object to another. Energy transformation can occur through the conversion of energy from one form to another. Energy is never created nor destroyed; it is always transferred and/or transformed. Students will demonstrate how energy is transformed and transferred in an ecosystem. To do this, students will create energy pyramids by stacking cups that represent organisms and available amounts of energy. Students will graph and analyze the data.
Students working on the task
A Lesson in Kindness and Thematic Complexity
Students explore their internal definition of kindness, using visual and textual evidence to collaboratively expand that definition and perform a close reading of a poem. Students then use internal text to express the author’s complex and subtle thematic message.
Inferring Through Imagery and Figurative Language
Students rotate to four posters which contain a single stanza from a common poem (“Digging” by Seamus Heaney), marking key literary elements (imagery, diction, figurative language) before rotating to explain the connotation of the words and phrases selected by the previous group. After text marking, students regroup to discuss the inferential connections between literary terms and their connotative meaning to theorize thematic meaning within the poem.
Making an Inference
The class will review previous learning about how authors describe characters using speech, thoughts, effects on others, actions, and looks (STEAL). Students will make annotations on an excerpt using the STEAL strategy. We will talk them through making a guided inference. Students will complete a short-answer response on chart paper with evidence and inference for the focus question
Plant, Parts, and Function
Students use prior knowledge of body systems as they make connections to systems in plants. Students learn that some plant systems have similar functions as the respective animal systems. The lesson highlights the following systems in plants: root system, shoot system, vascular system, and reproductive system.
Thesis Throwdown
After students watch a brief video introducing thesis statements, they will create a class thesis statement checklist, use a prompt to write a personal thesis, compare theirs to others in their group while working to craft and revise a group thesis to present to the class after participating in a Gallery Walk where they provide and incorporate revision suggestions.
Teacher Introducing Lesson
4 Using Reading and Writing to Support Learning Across the Content Areas
This resource presents instructional writing and reading practices that support the content area learning of adolescent learners.
The Write for Texas guiding principles of effective writing instruction, developed for all teachers across disciplines, focus on building every student's understanding and ability to read, write, and think like experts—historians, mathematicians, scientists, and literary critics.
17 OnTRACK Scientific Process Skills
This binder contains seventeen separate resources focused on the scientific processes for conducting laboratory and field investigations.
6 OnTRACK English I Reading: Reading and Vocabulary Development Across Genres
OnTRACK English I Reading, Module 1, Lessons 1–5 and Practice Lesson. Students will understand new vocabulary and use it when reading and writing.
4 OnTRACK English I Writing: Writing the Expository and Procedural Essay
OnTRACK English I Writing, Module 3, Lessons 1–4. Students write expository and procedural or work-related texts to communicate ideas and information to specific audiences for specific purposes