Scholastic
Tell Us a Tale: Teaching Students to Be Storytellers
Encourage scholars to retell their favorite short story or folktale, adding personal details to make it their own. After reading their book of choice several times, story tellers retell a tale verbally to their classmates.
Curated OER
Mini-Lesson Planning for Inferences
Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...
Curated OER
Short Story Lesson Plan
Students read and discuss the short story, "The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm," by Mark Twain. They assume the role of the main characters in the story and write a humorous letter of complaint using a business letter format. They...
Curated OER
Let's Summarize!
Young scholars, after brainstorming what summarization is, practice the strategy of summarization to help pick out the important parts of text each time they read. They read and summarize the article, "10 Cool Things About Dolphins,"...
Curated OER
Those Fabulous Fables
A video leads off this activity on fables, introducing the class to this important form of traditional storytelling. The group defines fable and hears an explanation of the origin of this type of folk tale. They summarize the story they...
Curated OER
Summarizing
Fourth graders listen to the teacher discuss the definition of "Summary." They read a story aloud with their classmates. After finishing the story, 4th graders are asked to choose the best summary statement.
Curated OER
Compare Two Versions: Folk Tales, Sequencing, and Summary
Compare two versions of "The Three Little Pigs" (traditional and Jon Scieszka's The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, told from the wolf's point of view). As your 4th graders recount the familiar version of the story, emphasize the...
Curated OER
Some Simple Rules to Sum it Up!
Students observe and demonstrate three steps to summarize text. They read and discuss the three steps to summarizing, then silently read an article about dugongs from "National Geographic Kids" magazine. Students demonstrate the three...
Curated OER
A Novel Ending/ Closure Activity
Young scholars summarize a story, identify the plot structure, and create a symbol that represents the essence of the story.
Curated OER
Creating Comic Strips
Students recognize the elements needed to create a comic strip. In this comic strip lesson, student understand that comic strips need words and pictures. Students find differences and similarities in comic strips. Students describe how...
Curated OER
“THE LORAX” by Dr. Seuss
Few children's books convey the message of conservation as well as Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. Read the story aloud, emphasizing the interconnectedness of plants and animals in an ecosystem and discussing different ways people can help the...
Curated OER
Mayan Myths/Folktales
Middle schoolers work on summarizing a story, and they determine if it is a legend, a myth, or a fable. Working in groups to read and summarize stories, they then list evidence whether the tale is a myth, fable, or legend. They present...
Curated OER
Identifying Themes in Children's Literature
Identifying themes in literature is the focus of the language arts lesson plan presented here. Learners read short pieces of fiction and practice the skill of identifying the themes present in each one. The bulk of the lesson consists of...
Gwinnett County Public Schools
Analysis of the Tuck Everlasting and The Birchbark House Text Exemplars
Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...
Curated OER
Outlines are Fun and Easy
Students goal is to achieve summarization. They read familiar words and decode words at their reading level. They summarize articles through the use of an outline in order ot improve reading comprehension. Students complete a basic...
Teach It Primary
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Six tasks make up a lesson plan designed to reinforce comprehension and language skills using the poem "The Pied Piper" by Robert Browing. Scholars discuss and define unknown words, identify adjectives and onomatopoeia, review complex...
For the Teachers
Main Idea Outline
Find the main idea in an informational text with a versatile lesson. Three levels of differentiation help you implement the strategy in any age or class level, based on the ability and objectives of your learners.
Channel Islands Film
Sa Hi Pa Ca (Once Upon a Time): Lesson Plan 2
What tools do archaeologists and anthropologist use to learned about what life was like in the past. After watching West of The West's documentary Once Upon a Time that details how scientists use artifacts to establish a history of the...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Scrapping the Biomes
Fifth graders investigate biomes of the earth. In this biomes instructional activity, 5th graders explore eight different biomes which include the tropical rain forest, deciduous forest, grasslands, and taiga. They design an artistic...
Curated OER
Fitting Trash into Yesterday: A Fifth Grade Activity
Fifth graders explore the concept of waste management. In this recycling lesson plan, 5th graders discover the history of waste management and discuss how the U.S. should respond to the issue of ever-increasing waste.