Newsela
Understanding "A Long Walk to Water"
What is the secret to success? Scholars use close reading of a variety of articles to determine characteristics of people that overcame hardships to become successful. While reading, pupils annotate their copies, make claims, and...
Sullivan County BOCES
Reading Closely Teacher Manual
Wolves are the subject of a series of images, informational texts, videos, websites, and narratives. The activities prompt learners to use close reading skills, including reading closely for textual details, making evidence-based claims,...
Mr. Nussbaum
Abraham Lincoln Reading Comprehension—The Middle Years (Part 1)
Learn more about Honest Abe with an informative passage that details his life chronologically. As learners read sections of the text, they answer multiple choice questions that draw on their ability to recall details from the passage.
College Board
Reading—Central Idea and Evidence
Young readers become experts at finding the central idea in informational text with an educational resource. The resource includes helpful tips to annotating close passages to succeed on the actual SAT exam, as well as strategies to make...
Harper Collins
Parrot in the Oven: Response Journal
After completing Chapter 5 of Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, readers make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections to Victor Martinez's novel by crafting journal entries addressing comments and questions to characters in...
EngageNY
Close Reading: “Natural Resources and the Canadian Economy”
Readers continue to learn how natural resources are important to Canada's economy. They read, annotate, and answer text-dependent questions about Natural Resources and the Canadian Economy. They then discuss key terms in the text.
ESL Holiday Lessons
Mardi Gras
Take a trip to Mardi Gras with a festive reading packet! After class members read an informational article about the history and celebration of Mardi Gras, they think about the structure of the passage by unscrambling words, filling in...
EngageNY
Building Background Knowledge: The Lost Boys of Sudan
Get deep! Teach scholars how to make connections between texts to deepen their understanding of a topic. Using the resource, pupils read and annotate a short informational text about Sudan's Civil War and refugee crisis. Next, they...
Colorado Springs School District
AP Literature and Composition Reading and Writing Transition Tasks
Worried about the summer slide? Scholars keep literature skills sharp by working through a summer packet to prep for AP Literature classes. Pupils annotate and close read short stories, answer questions about a variety of literary...
EngageNY
Building Background Knowledge: The Dinka and Nuer Tribes Until the Mid-1980s (“Sudanese Tribes Confront Modern War” Excerpt 1) (Version 1)
Readers consider comparisons between the Dinka and Nuer tribes in South Sudan, making connections between an informational article about Sudanese tribes and the novel A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They annotate the text to help...
California Education Partners
The Road Not Taken
An effective lesson plan truly can make all the difference. Seventh graders read, analyze, and annotate Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" before writing an essay about what they believe to be the theme of the iconic poem.
New York State Education Department
English Language Arts Examination: January 2018
Excerpts from classic novels make great material for standardized tests. A sample English language arts examination, part of a larger set of assessments, mixes excerpts from classic novels and more modern texts. The test includes three...
Curated OER
Choosing A Search Site
Computer savvy kids construct a lift-the-flap poster to aid them in selecting appropriate search sites for research and information gathering. Through online observations, they record and compare the features of four children's search...
EngageNY
Getting the Gist and Tracing an Argument: “Public Fear” Excerpt from “The Exterminator”
Only fear fear itself. Scholars read Public Fear from The Exterminator. Triads work together to annotate and determine the gist of the text. They then complete a Tracing an Argument graphic organizer to identify arguments, claims, and...
EngageNY
Building Background Knowledge: The Dinka Tribe (“Loss of Culturally Vital Cattle Leaves Dinka Tribe Adrift in Refugee Camps” Excerpt 1)
Text annotations help readers track essential ideas. Pupils continue reading and annotating an informational article about Sudanese tribes, connecting it with A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They also begin writing about their...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Close Reading Worksheet
A passage from Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome provides the text for an assessment that asks readers to use evidence from the excerpt to decide if Ethan is a victim of his social and physical environment, or of his own personal choices and...
EngageNY
Building Background Knowledge: "Fleeing Saigon as Panic Rises”
How can scholars better understand the refugee experience? Pupils read Fox Butterfield's article "Panic Rises in Saigon, but the Exits are Few" and connect it to the novel Inside Out & Back Again. They annotate the text, looking for...
K20 LEARN
Writing An Argumentative Paragraph: Argumentative Writing
Learning how to craft a cogent argument based on a solid claim, supported with evidence and solid reasoning, is an important life skill. Teach middle schoolers about argumentative writing with a lesson asking them to analyze the claims,...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 3, Unit 2, Lesson 7
Now that learners have honed their inquiry-based projects down to their strongest few questions, they can conduct independent research. High schoolers pursue answers to their inquiries while assessing sources, establishing a research...
Curated OER
Annotating Poetry
Use text marking and highlighting to explore the structure of a poem. After listening to Allan Ahlberg read "Please Mrs. Butler," learners locate stanzas and patterns on their copy of the poem using the text marking technique. Class...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2: Unit 1, Lesson 2
Make up your mind to complete a lesson plan about "The Tell-Tale Heart" and forever rid yourself of simple sentence structures. As ninth graders analyze the first two paragraphs of Edgar Allan Poe's short story, they consider how text...
EngageNY
The Hero’s Journey, Part 1: What is a Hero?
That was heroic! Scholars quickly look over What is a Hero to determine and discuss the structure of the text. They then read the introduction and Act 1 closely to find the gist and annotate the text. They circle unfamiliar words and...
Literacy Design Collaborative
Rhetorical Analysis for Pre-AP English
Scholars closely analyze the use of rhetorical strategies in several model texts. They work in groups to annotate the text identifying rhetorical elements, and to complete a Rhetorical Analysis chart and guided reading worksheet....
EngageNY
Introducing World without Fish
One fish, two fish, red fish, no fish. Scholars analyze World without Fish to determine the gist, identify vocabulary, and answer text-dependent questions. As learners read, they use sticky notes to annotate the text. They also work in...