Are video games sports? Pupils investigate this question as well as various nonfiction selections to learn more about claims and the support that defines them. All of the selections mimic the rigor on state tests and encourage close...

What do a cheetah, Audi commercial, and air have in common? They're all topics of an engaging inquiry-based, hands-on workshop for educators about background knowledge, reading strategies, the CER model, and argumentative writing. The...

How have educational standards evolved? Educators of adults examine expectations in the 10th workshop out of 15 to better determine how standards have grown. Participants respond to a variety of sample questions to determine how they...

Is a college education necessary for success in today's world? The class investigates the question, along with others at the end of the sixth workshop in a 15-part series. The lesson has four parts with multiple activities and...

This resource presents instructional practices for writing summaries of expository text in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies classes.

This resource explores instructional practices for persuasive essay writing in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies classes. It uses original content from the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies: Focus on...

This resource explores instructional practices for incorporating formal writing into English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies instruction. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1.d

How can you tell if a text is descriptive, informative, instructional or persuasive? This BBC Skillswise tutorial teaches you how with a factsheet, worksheet, quiz, and game.

This collection of rubrics and checklists can be used for formative and summative assessments. Students can use many of these to self-assess during various phases of the informative writing process, and teachers may use these to guide...

Contains plans for five 50-minute lessons that ask students to compare and research information about animals from fiction and nonfiction texts. In addition to student objectives and standards, these instructional plans contains links to...

Contains plans for three lessons that ask students to compare narrative writing (short stories) to expository writing (news articles) in order to understand what makes each genre unique. In addition to objectives and standards, this...

Writing is a complex operation requiring knowledge of text structure, syntax, vocabulary, and topic, and sensitivity to audience needs; so it is not surprising that many teens find writing challenging. This article identifies the...

Because writing is thinking, the organization of students' writing reflects both the structure of their thinking and the depth of their understanding. Students should be writing in all their classes, explaining what they know and how...

This website offers a free download of the Research-Based Content Area Reading Instruction booklet. The purpose of this booklet is to provide teachers with research-based and classroom-tested information about each of these aspects of...

This resource presents instructional writing practices that support content-area learning, with specific strategies for teaching the thinking skills, processes, and knowledge needed to effectively write personal narrative texts. Some of...

Contains plans for nine lessons that ask students to create multigenre zines for popular culture figures that include letter, persuasive, narrative, acrostic poetry, comic, and biography/autobiography writing. To accomplish this,...

In writing and reading organization is the key to a reader's understanding. A great site for those of you who are looking for some further explanation of organization in writing. There is instruction, an example text, and specific...

This site provides some help reading an essay that deals with the classification and analysis of a piece of literature. Offers some instruction about the type of essay, a sample text, and guiding questions to help you analyze your own...

Students are instructed in a nine-step process of how to write a literary response paper that includes a thesis, strong ideas, and specific supporting details from the text. W.11-12.9a Amer Lit 18th,19th, 20th cen/Analy

In this lesson, Barry Lane's books entitled Reviser's Toolbox and 51 Wacky We-Search Reports are used as mentor texts. Used as a refeference, the concept of recipe poems can be instructed to the students and the genre of "how to" books,...

Numerous resources are provided to support the instruction of the argument essay.

Contains plans for four lessons that ask students to change the action in the turning point of a tragedy in order to see the effect on the rest of the play. In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links...

An exciting introduction to reading! The instructor writes a simple, one-line story on the board from literature, and the students learn to sound out the words.

After reading Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, students learn about writing in chronological order and about using a catch phrase throughout a text in order to unite ideas. Teacher...