Sometimes a test page loaded with text can make a student's face go blank. Help them decipher what a text question is asking with a series of tips focused on reading comprehension, vocabulary, and language arts mechanics.

Water is the source of life. It appears in poetry in both peaceful and torrential descriptions; it appears in earth science in its liquid, gaseous, and solid states. Combine these interpretations of our planet's most precious and...

Heroic Trading Cards? Using a suggested list, class members use the Internet to find information about a memorable leader, select and transfer images, and craft a trading card celebrating their leader’s qualities and accomplishments. A...

Helpful for English language learners as well as English speakers, this worksheet focuses on the conditional tense. The picture chart at the top of the page helps to explain that a conditional phrase can be formed  two different...

As part of a mid-unit assessment, scholars draft their inside-out poems and then work on their "Back Again" poems. Learners use a rubric and graphic organizers to guide their writing.

Team up! Scholars begin working with their research teams to review the components of an effective poem. They then move on to independent work by beginning the end-of-unit assessment. Writers complete the draft of their "Back Again"...

Scholars analyze a model poem to help guide their poetry writing. They use Think-Pair-Share to discuss word choice and meaning in "Papaya Tree" and "Wet and Crying." To finish, they use their discussions to collect evidence on what makes...

It's task time! Scholars complete the final lesson plan of the unit by completing a performance task. Readers begin in groups, working on a task card. Once complete, they move to an independent task, writing responses to a prompt about...

Get your class thinking about advertising with this lesson plan. Over the course of 15 days, your class will discuss advertising techniques, study the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos, and analyze the persuasive techniques of...

Examine popular language and slang and how they have changed over the course of American history. Conduct Internet research, use an online interactive Colonial House website to translate 17th century language into 21st century language,...

If you're looking for engaging, cross-curricular, inquiry-based activities and projects to support your class reading of Carl Hiaasen's Hoot, you've come to the right place!

Join the newspaper business with a series of lessons and exercises focused on elements of journalism. The packet focuses on distinguishing fact from opinion, writing effective headlines, sequencing events, and editing and...

Welcome to America, the land of liberty and freedom. Examine the ways in which the terms liberty and freedom have been used in the United States. After researching and analyzing quotations from the past and present, students create an...

In this language arts lesson, 8th graders verify the meaning of a word in its context, even when its meaning is not directly stated. After a class discussion on how to use context clues, students pairs are given a worksheet of "mystery...

Initiate an international pen pal program! After establishing communication with an art class in another country, groups share pod casts and video streams of their work. The scripted resource details how to prepare for the pod casts, but...

In this New York State Testing Program English Language Arts worksheet, students read several passages and two poems and answer reading comprehension questions.  Students then write an essay response to one of the passages. 

Music has the power to bring topics alive. Learners take on the role of sound director in their film planning and choose the songs to accompany their photographs. They must also support their decisions with evidence and reasoning as they...

Who? Where? Why? Scholars answer these questions to help identify the gist of Inside Out & Back Again. First, they add text evidence to their research folders. They then begin looking at a performance task in which they write their...

Verbs are deceptive and like to disguise themselves. Young linguists identify verbals, specifically gerunds, infinitives, and participles when analyzing the third stage of Carlotta's journey in the novel A Mighty Long Way. Bridge...

Writing becomes dynamic in a presentation. Presenters transform a piece of writing they have already composed about the Little Rock Nine into a presentation. The focus is transferring ideas from their writing into short prompts on cards...

The field mouse, also known as the meadow vole, is most active at night, so hide the cheese! Scholars research these interesting rodents and record three fascinating facts using the novel study for Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. They...

This abstract for an instructional unit using three-minute mysteries, stories by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, and Edgar Allan Poe includes a short history of detective fiction, sample plans, and suggestions for exercises and activities...

After reading "The Bullet," a particularly intense chapter in Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members listen to the Spanish and the English versions of "Dimelo" by Enrique Iglesias. They then discuss how the...

Historical fiction novels give readers a chance to step into someone else's shoes. An educator's guide from Penguin Common Core Lesson Plans provides resources to accompany three historical fiction novels written by Ruta Sepetys: Between...