Looking for an activity to increase fluency? Third graders will practice reading comprehension by expanding their reading level. They will demonstrate for their teacher their current reading level and then decide on a goal to be reached...

Based on the rate of melting observed from 2003-2007 in Greenland, it would take less than 10 minutes to fill the Dallas Cowboys' Stadium. The 17th instructional activity in a series of 21 has scholars use the ICESat data to understand...

Select an article that explores people of another culture. After reading it as a class, distribute copies of this worksheet. It asks for a brief summary, encourages readers to make text-to-self connections, and asks learners to identify...

The Supreme Court gets all the glory, but very few federal cases make it to the highest court. An interesting lesson explores the structure of the lower levels of the federal court system. In addition to outlining the organization of...

Left-to-right, left-to-right, that's the way we read and write! Watch this short video clip and teach your young learners this chant before they start writing! 

What important facts about Dr. Seuss influenced the Read Across America movement...? This is the driving question of a research project that requires scholars to find information about Dr. Seuss' life and work. Class...

After several short 15-minute mini-lessons, your learners will gain an understanding of the characteristics of a non-fiction text. Using the book Map It by Elspeth Leacock, your class will become acquainted with non-fiction terms...

Students participate in independent reading activities by reading a book at their independent reading level and selecting activities to complete after reading. Activities are broken up into C Level, B Level, and A Level activities.

The words of Henry David Thoreau on Civil Disobedience seem particularly relevant today, as are his writings and those of other transcendental thinkers who ask what it mean to live deliberately and what are the responsibilities of...

Guide your class through reading various versions of The Three Little Pigs. Talk about the traditional story line and then discuss a different point of view: Maybe the wolf was just an innocent bystander! This lesson plan, which has...

Combine the study of poetry and non-fiction texts with this complete and ready-to-use six-week unit. After reading numerous poems from local writers and compiling a personal anthology, high schoolers find and read a memoir or biography...

Learners write a scene.  In this creative writing instructional activity, students read The Lightning Thief and discuss the sentence fluency and word choice in the writing.  Learners complete a writing assignment where they...

What do Jeep advertisements and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have in common? They both employ the art of the extended metaphor! Using the Six-Trait Writing model, learners begin to work on their own extended metaphors. Development...

Are you working on an autobiographical or narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson to your class, as it takes young writers through the process of drafting and sequencing an autobiography. After observing and demonstrating steps of the...

Does the FDA really intend to protect public health? Spark a debate in your chemistry or health class by using this article, titled "Beauty or the Beast." It questions the safety of cosmetics and toiletry products, govenment regulations,...

Capitalism, socialism, communism ... these may seem like a whole bunch of isms to your scholars. High schoolers won't  confuse them after completing an informative resource. Your class masters how to use primary sources to...

Use picture cues as a tool in order to create meaning along with text. With a wordless comic, young illustrators discuss the main idea and character traits, and independently write a summary for a page of a wordless comic. This strategy...

Can you imagine living in a totalitarian country? Learners will read several primary source memoirs to gain a deeper understanding of what life is like under a controlled government. They'll discuss each piece in pairs, research...

Although the article that launches this lesson is about the history of the Periodic Table, the objective is reading comprehension. Using the eight-page informational text, learners answer five comprehension questions and craft one essay....

Why do we read primary source documents? What can they give us that other writings cannot? Provide your learners with any of the primary sources attached here (there are seven), and have them complete the graphic organizer (which opens...

Students create tables in a word processing program which helps them organize their text clues when reading a mystery story. They develop reading comprehension strategies while using a computer based graphic organizer in order to solve...

Sixth graders select a prose, poetry, or nonfiction excerpt from a book of their choice and share it by reading aloud to their classmates, who identify the genre and respond to related questions in their journals.

Fourth graders read passages of Koya's Cousin Del before answering questions in a discussion setting. They listen to a variety of musical pieces before detailing how the music makes them feel in a short piece of writing. They share their...

Students create a series of large posters to encourage reading on the campus. In this reading posters lesson, students use a camera to take pictures of students reading in order to promote reading on their campus. Students use digital...