Only a thorough understanding of history can save us from repeating it. Practice close reading skills with an eighth grade unit that focuses on 19th century America, including European immigration into Ellis Island and Frederick...

The second lesson of a pair about Paul Laurence Dunbar, this plan focuses in particular on his poem, "We Wear the Masks." After a short historical introduction, class members conduct a series or readings, marking up the text and...

Why is reading a text closely a helpful skill? Using the 13th of 20 lessons from the Grade 8 ELA Module 1, Unit 2 series, scholars continue reading the informational text "Refugee and Immigrant Children: A Comparison." They work with...

Pupils continue reading and discussing Simon Schama's article "The Shakespeare Shakedown." They work together to analyze the article's paragraph structure, completing a note-catcher worksheet.

An English language arts unit closely examines spelling, grammar, reading, and writing skills. Scholars practice spelling patterns and tricky words. A read-aloud details the War of 1812 and introduces adverbs, and a close reading looks...

Second graders practice skills, including spelling, grammar, and reading. Pupils examine vowel sounds and tricky words, nouns, and verbs. They begin the writing process by drafting a persuasive letter and decoding texts.

Focus on similarities and differences with a jigsaw activity that requires pupils to compare Waiting for the Biblioburro to other texts they have read. To prepare, class members first respond to text-dependent questions, moving on to...

Expose your class to Waiting for the Biblioburro, narrative nonfiction that will act as the bridge between ficiton and informational texts to come. Class members do a close reading of the text, looking at excerpts instead of the whole...

Acquaint your class with informational text through a close reading. First, examine a couple of pages together, looking at text features and content. The whole class focuses on marking down a brief summary of each paragraph before...

This activity may have writers evaluate short compositions, but their subjects are quite tall: great Americans. Pupils read one another's compositions and closely examine how specific phrases and diction contribute to shaping American...

In the third activity from this unit based on the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, learners focus on using specific details from the text-to-answer questions about the habitat of bullfrogs. While reading the text, young...

Young readers continue to strengthen their fluency skills with a text of their choosing. The teacher first engages the class with an audio recording or read-aloud of a short poem, modeling for children how to read fluently. Next it's...

Help the class uncover the story of Frankenstein. Learners answer questions and complete activities to respond to the text Frankenstein as they read. Scholars learn new vocabulary, respond to personal and text-dependent questions,...

Third graders answer text-dependent questions of the story Nasreen's Secret School both independently and then collaboratively through using the carousel of questions strategy. This plan is the seventh instructional activity in a...

The engaging story Rain School is further explored in the third instructional activity of a larger unit that explicitly teaches close reading skills by answering questions whose answers can only be found inside the text....

Explicitly explained and delightfully detailed are two ways to describe this tenth lesson plan in a larger unit designed for the first few weeks of third grade. Learners continue to use and develop previously learned close reading...

This second lesson in a larger unit is perfect for the beginning of the year because it explicitly teaches 3rd graders how to use close reading skills by identifying unfamiliar words, figuring out the gist, and defining important...

For this ninth lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit, close reading skills are used independently to find the gist of the story That Book Woman. Rereading for important details is the targeted skill to unlock a deeper...

The twelfth instructional activity of this unit builds on the skills developed in the previous instructional activity, as fourth graders continue their quest to become experts on colonial trade by listening to interviews with historical...

Voices from the past. Young scholars listen to a podcast interview with a historical re-enactor as they continue their research in the eleventh instructional activity of this unit on colonial trade. Applying their close reading skills,...

Close reading is key to the analysis and interpretation of literature. A close reading of the title and the epigraph of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” offers readers an opportunity to examine how even single words or names can...

A lesson challenges scholars to compare and contrast two readings about Poison Dart Frogs. Information presented comes from different informational texts, followed by a discussion, and the completion of a Venn diagram. A one-page...

Poison Dart Frog babies are the focus of a instructional activity that challenges scholars to compare and contrast two informational texts. Beginning with a read-aloud, followed by a discussion, readers complete a practice page that...

English language arts and science combine in a lesson that focuses on asking and answering questions about frog skin. Discussion, a read-aloud, and partner work lead the way towards a three-page worksheet that tests learners'...