Curated OER
What We Eat, Where We Sleep: Documenting Daily Life to Tell Stories
This is not just a New York Time article to read, this is a set of amazing activity ideas all related to the slide shows "Breaking Bread Everywhere" and "Where Children Sleep." Your class can view each show, read about what they mean...
Curated OER
Close Reading Passages of Literature
Encourage kids to think deeply about what they are reading with five thought-provoking questions about one passage. After choosing a passage that is intriguing or confusing to them, learners write a summary, explain what they like or...
Odell Education
Reading Closely for Textual Details: Grades 9-10
Pay close attention! After finding details in a picture, scholars begin to find details in videos and text. They work together in groups, discuss in pairs, and carry out independent reading to answer guiding questions. Organizers, tools,...
Odell Education
Reading Closely for Textual Details: Grades 9-10
Pupils work in small groups to answer guided questions and discuss the details they found. They also read independently, improving strategies they learned to approach and question text.
US Department of Education
A Close Reading of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address provides the text for a series of close reading exercises that model for instructors how carefully crafted guiding questions can help readers think critically about what they read, thus developing...
Curated OER
Using the Comprehension Strategies
High school learners review the six major reading comprehension strategies. They demonstrate the strategies by putting them into action using more complex reading. They finish by discussing a seventh strategy, monitoring comprehension.
One Pot Learning
Reading Comprehension Worksheet
Three annotated passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on "Nature" provide young philosophers a chance to improve their reading comprehension skills as they gain insight into Emerson's ideas.
We are Teachers
Read Like a Detective
Encourage your young readers to become true detectives in their next literary adventure! Here you'll find an attractive display that will prompt your learners to constantly be looking for clues, asking questions, making cases...
Novelinks
The Martian Chronicles: Fishbowl Discussion
Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles provides the text for a fishbowl activity. Class members to sit in concentric circles, with the center circle discussing the topics from the book, and the outer circle observing the...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 2: Level 10
Are you a friggatriskaidekaphobic? An excerpt from an article about the fear of Friday the 13th is used as the basis of a reading comprehension exercise. The five questions require readers to employ several strategies (drawing...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 7: Level 12
A passage about the changing role of home economists provides the text for a reading comprehension strategies learning exercise. Learners must summarize, draw inferences, identify the main idea, and use context clues to determine the...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 5: level 11
Use this reading comprehension exercise at the beginning of the year to assess the reading comprehension level of your class, to remind readers of how to use strategies to decode dense text, or to assess the skills of a new student....
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 4
Frequent reading practice leads to increased fluency and reading comprehension. Help develop reading skills in your high schoolers with this reading passage and the questions that follow. The answer sheet is incredibly detailed; it...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 6: Level 9
Did you know that an acre of trees can absorb as much carbon dioxide as a car emits in 11,000 miles of driving? Such fun facts abound in a short reading comprehension passage detailing the benefits of parks and rooftop gardens. After...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 2
You scream, I scream! Young learners read this passage about ice cream flavors, then answer 13 questions about details from the reading. The questions address details from the text, vocabulary, and parts of speech. Use this activity to...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 8 Level 9
Interest your class with the idea of exquisite paintings and the forgeries created from them. This is a reading task; English language learners or native speakers read the text and answer the six questions that follow. Questions focus on...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 4 Level 12
Designed for English language learners, this reading passage and its accompanying questions focus on autism spectrum disorders. Find a way to interest your readers before handing them this somewhat heavy reading, as even many...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 2: Level 11
Engage your class by asking them how many passwords they think they currently have. This article brings to light the crazy amount of passwords the average computer user has! After reading the article, kids complete the multiple-choice...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension: "The Transfers"
Get ready for state testing with this resource! First, read the short story "The Transfers." Then, answer the questions that follow. While there are quite a few advanced vocabulary words, they are easy to understand in context. A great...
Curated OER
Dracula: Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)
“There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night.” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest,” which may or may not have been the first chapter of the original Dracula manuscript, is the focus of a Directed Reading Thinking Activity...
McGraw Hill
Reading Strategies and Literary Elements
Introduce your freshmen to reading comprehension strategies and key literary elements with a year's worth of lessons and exercises. Each lesson focuses on a specific literary device and includes a definition of the term, a passage that...
Phantom of Opera
The Phantom of the Opera: Ideas for Research and Discussion
You could spend a full day discussing The Phantom of the Opera and not scratch the surface, but a set of lessons about the literary elements and themes of the musical production is a great start. Young thespians build upon the...
National Humanities Center
Teaching Emily Dickinson: A Common Core Close Reading Seminar
Three of Emily Dickinson's poems, "I like to see it," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "We grow accustomed to the Dark," provide instructors with an opportunity to model for class members how to use close reading strategies to...
Scholastic
Reading Characters
Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass provides the text for a study of how writers bring characters to life. Using the provided character mapping worksheets, readers respond to questions and then write a short character sketch.