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Lesson Plan
National Council of Teachers of English

Timelines and Texts: Motivating Students to Read Nonfiction

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
With the emphasis on incorporating more nonfiction in language arts classes the question arises about how to design activities that motivate kids to engage with informational text. How about an assignment that asks class members to...
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Printables
Polk Bros Foundation

Comprehensive Nonfiction Reading Questions

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Analyze any nonfiction text with the set of questions on this sheet. Class members practice inferring by noting the main idea and purpose of a passage. They also analyze an opinion in the passage and write a brief summary. See the...
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Organizer
Polk Bros Foundation

How to Summarize a Non-Fiction Passage

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
After reading a text, one way to find out how much your class comprehended is to ask your pupils to summarize. This worksheet helps class members prepare for writing a summary of a nonfiction text. They note down the topic, up to eight...
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Activity
Lee & Low Books

Classroom Guide for Sacred Mountain: Everest

For Teachers 4th - 8th Standards
The most famous climbers of Mount Everest could never have made it to the summit without the assistance of the local Sherpa. Christine Taylor-Butler's nonfiction children's book Sacred Mountain: Everest is the focus of an extensive...
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Mob Mentality and "The Outsiders": Integrating Fiction and Nonfiction

For Teachers 7th - 8th Standards
S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders allows middle schoolers to reflect on mob mentality. After reading an article and watching a video about herd mentality, class members find examples in the novel of when characters go along with the crowd and...
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Organizer
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Mark Twain Media

Understanding Informational Text Features

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
Everything you need to know about informational text features can be found in this resource. Recognizing these types of text features and how they are used in text allows readers to better understand information. Teachers can use this as...
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Lesson Plan
EngageNY

Analyzing the Significance of the Novel’s Title: Connecting the Universal Refugee Experience to Inside Out and Back Again, Part 2

For Teachers 8th Standards
How does poetry help people better understand societal issues? Pupils participate in a jigsaw activity to analyze poems from the novel Inside Out & Back Again. Next, they connect the poems to real-life refugee experiences from the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Let There Be Peace: Nobel Prize Winners

For Teachers 6th - 12th
What is the Nobel Peace Prize? After they establish criteria for great leadership, secondary learners read a New York Times article about President Jimmy Carter's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Individuals research the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Fears and Phobias

For Teachers 7th - 10th
Take the fear out of reading with this series of three lessons from HotWire Magazine about fears and phobias. Each lesson contains pre-reading and post-reading activities aimed at improving learners' reading comprehension skills with the...
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Lesson Plan
Media Smarts

Media Awareness Network: Hate or Debate?

For Teachers 8th - 10th
Discuss the difference between legitimate debate on a political issue and arguments that are based on hate through a science-fiction scenario that shows how a controversial issue can be discussed in both ways. Then learn how purveyors of...
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Lesson Plan
Media Smarts

The Newspaper Front Page

For Teachers 7th - 10th
Hot off the presses! A perfect instructional activity idea for a journalism class or even a language arts class looking to incorporate some informational texts. Young writers analyze the front pages of various newspapers to determine the...
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Organizer
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Polk Bros Foundation

Meet the Nonfiction Main Idea Challenge

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
Help your class develop the ability to determine a main idea with a packet of materials that you can introduce and use over a period of time. The packet includes some information for the teacher and rationale for the exercises. There are...
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Organizer
Polk Bros Foundation

A Way to Analyze Paragraphs to Figure Out the Main Idea of a Nonfiction Text

For Teachers 5th - 10th Standards
Shrink up a section by asking pupils to write down the main idea for each of seven paragraphs. There is a space provided for each main idea. When students have completed this portion, they write down what they think to be the central...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Supporting Opinions: Handling the End of a Friendship

For Students 7th - 11th
Four thought-provoking questions encourage readers to develop and support their opinions about strategies to end a friendship after exploring excerpts from a New York Times article. The reading is brief so this could be a lead-in to...
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Organizer
3
3
Polk Bros Foundation

I Can Identify a Nonfiction Writer's Main Idea and Supporting Examples

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Use this page to quickly identify the central idea of a text and organize ideas for writing an informational or explanatory text. The worksheet is split into two parts. In the first part, pupils note down the main idea and supporting...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Creating a Newspaper

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...
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Lesson Plan
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Baruch College Writing Center

Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting Workshop

For Teachers 7th - 10th Standards
What's the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing? Show class members how to find the main ideas from informational text and condense it, restate it, or quote it directly with a series of educational activities based on two...
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Lesson Plan
University of Arizona

Found News Poems

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Combine informational text and creative writing with one fun activity! Middle and high schoolers write found poems based on newspaper headlines that they find. The resource includes a thorough lesson plan and many links to articles that...
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Unit Plan
3
3
Curated OER

Farewell to Manzanar

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Examine human resilience across two texts with a detailed unit. Over the course of a week, learners will conduct a close reading of excerpts from Unbroken and Farewell to Manzanar. The resource includes clear procedures for reading and...
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Lesson Plan
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Scholastic

Prescription Pain Medication: What You Need to Know

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
The national epidemic of opioid addiction is making its way into high school populations. Educate the students in your class about the ways prescription opioids can both block pain and deliver large amounts of dopamine that make it very...
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Assessment
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Curated OER

End-of-Year Practice Test (Grade 8 ELA/Literacy)

For Students 8th Standards
Common Core testing on your mind? Ease your class into the test by requiring pupils to take this practice test. The focus of this test is reading. Learners read several passages, both literary and informational, and respond to multiple...
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Printables
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Curriculum Corner

8th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists

For Teachers 8th Standards
How close are your eighth graders to mastering the ELA Common Core standards? Keep an eye on progress with these charts, which include every eighth grade identifier and full standard text. As you move through the year and teach, reteach,...
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Printables
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Curriculum Corner

8th Grade ELA "I Can" Statement Posters

For Teachers 8th Standards
Eighth grades can master the ELA Common Core standards! Show your learners the connection between classroom activities and assignments and the standards with this set of "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been rewritten as an...
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Unit Plan
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Thoughtful Education Press

Compare and Contrast

For Teachers 4th - 8th Standards
Encourage readers to compare and contrast the information that they find in informational text with a variety of reading passages and worksheets. Learners read all about subjects in science, social studies, and literature before...

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