Encourage close reading of the text and a focus on how Sandra Cisneros' develops her characters with an activity that asks teams to sort, group, and label character descriptions from The House on Mango Street.

A unit plan uses short texts to teach literary elements such as theme and characterization. Included are passages by authors such as Walter Dean Myers and Sandra Cisneros. Activities include quick writes, filling in graphic organizers,...

In this passive texts worksheet, students read newspaper articles and put them into the passive form. Students put 4 articles into the passive form.

Students examine the text features of non-fiction. For this literacy lesson, students practice reading graphs and discover the authors intent for using them in primary and secondary sources.

In this dictation text worksheet, students take dictation on a selection using vocabulary associated with driving.  The text is geared towards those who are learning to drive and learning English.

In this Biblical texts worksheet, students read and complete the narrative for the assignment that requires them to prepare and write comparative papers on Kings and Chronicles, Legal Collections, and Prophecy.

Middle schoolers create a story based upon their interpretation of a work of art. The story displays students' knowledge of writing conventions, elements of a short story, literary conflict and use of descriptive text.

Learning how to draw inferences from text is a key reading comprehension skill. Here's a activity that gives readers a chance to practice by offering 20 descriptive sentences and asking kids to identify the inferred character trait,...

Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about...

Readers of Nineteen Eighty-Four engage in a close reading exercise that directs their focus to the key details Orwell provides in the opening paragraphs to introduce his dystopian society. The included worksheeet is divided into three...

Whether or not you are new to using graphic organizers with informational or expository text, the materials in this guide will prove useful. 

Sprechen sie Deutsch? Future cryptographers must decide whether an unknown text is written in English or in German. They use provided pie charts about the frequency of words in the English and German languages to help make their decisions.

Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...

Young historians compare the presentation of medical care during the Civil War in passages from fictional and nonfictional texts. They examine passages from Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Soldier's...

The characters in Lois Lowry's The Giver are rich and complex as they weave their way through the plot. Examine the character traits of one chosen person with a biopoem, which enables learners to follow a poetic format in writing a...

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass serves as the anchor text for a lesson plan on symbolism. Readers use the provided worksheets to examine the symbols in the novel as well as in the world around them.

Many dream of a place of refuge to escape from the harsh world. That is exactly what Redwall is for the creatures of the forest. Redwall is a fantasy novel that tells of the trouble that comes to a quiet and peaceful forest....

Scratching your head when it comes to engaging writing prompts? Check out a list of prompts designed for middle school classes, which includes topics for persuasive writing, expository writing, how-to essays, personal narratives, and...

Explore how the library or Internet resources function as textual information. Young writers research a chosen topic then read and comprehend the collected information. They structure the information with texts and graphics for a...

Add to the narrative writing experience. Elementary or middle school writers listen to the teacher read a descriptive passage, then reread the same passage silently. They highlight sensory details and figurative language, then orally...

Beginning with anticipation guide strategies is a powerful method for improving reading comprehension. First, list initial ideas for a topic the class will be reading about. These ideas are formulated into statements, some of which are...

Get high school geographers to compare and contrast Canada and the United States. They begin by drawing a freehand map of North America, then complete readings to gain insight into Canada. The text is not provided; however, another text...

Students complete descriptive writing about the appearance and actions of a horse. In this descriptive writing lesson plan, students use the 'Cloud Grows Character' to chart the horse as they watch videos of his growth stages. Students...

For this proofreading worksheet, students identify spelling, capitalization, punctuation and grammar mistakes in a descriptive paragraph and use editing marks to correct them.