Penguin Books
An Educator's Guide to Jan Brett
Prepare to teach Jan Brett stories by taking a look at this teacher resource, which includes text-based questions, writing assignments, discussion ideas, and vocabulary practice for 18 different stories.
ReadWriteThink
Teaching Point of View With Two Bad Ants
What better way to explain the concept of point of view than from an ant's perspective! After reading Two Bad Ants, pupils identify the point of view of the ants by studying the text and pictures. Then, they fill out a chart that...
Smithsonian Institution
Black Diamond
Score a home run with this packet of information on the very first player of the Negro League to be elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame — cultural groundbreaker and sports legend Satchel Paige. These worksheets include a...
Novelinks
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter: Vocabulary List
A staggering amount of work went into compiling this vocabulary resource for Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. The overview provides a rationale for the strategy and information about tier 1, 2, and 3 words. The 19-page...
PBS
Stories of Painkiller Addiction: Learning About Opioids
Feeling high is not the only side effect of abusing prescription opioids. Middle and high schoolers learn more about specific painkillers, including Fentanyl, Oxycodone, and Clonazepam, as well as their common brand names and extensive...
Curated OER
Tuck Everlasting Unit
Natalie Babbitt's award winning fantasy, Tuck Everlasting, is the anchor text in a unit plan that focuses on identifying similes, metaphors, imagery, and personification in the text and analyzing how these elements effect the development...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 9: Climax
Conduct a close reading of chapter 9 of The Cay. Read the chapter again and ask pupils to respond to a list of included text-dependent questions. Finish the class with the provided writing assignment, which asks learners to use textual...
Curated OER
Lesson Six: Nonfiction Text Elements (Part One)
Students examine nonfiction text elements in preparation for writing a nonfiction book about Lewis and Clark. In this social studies/language arts lesson, students discuss the term research and complete a cluster map. Additionally,...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to the Short Story
How should pupils read short stories? Set them up for this unit with an introductory lesson that goes over the main characteristics of a short story and starts learners off reading their first short story of the unit. In order to get a...
Channel Islands Film
Dark Water: Lesson Plan 1 - Grades 3-4
As part of their study of the history of the Channel Islands, class members craft an informational article to post on a bulletin board that features the Chumash ancestral tradition of tomol paddling.
Minnesota Literacy Council
Introduction to Historical Thinking
Christopher Columbus: hero or villain? Prepare class members for the debate with activities that asks them to think critically about how history is reported.
Curated OER
NonFiction Reading
Students explore reading nonfiction. In this nonfiction lesson, students practice using KWL charts to organize nonfiction information gained from reading. Students explore unfamiliar words from reading and recognize synonyms and antonyms.
Curated OER
Researching African Americans Who Made a Difference
Celebrate Black History Month with this lesson, in which middle schoolers create an essay about a famous African-American. Writers conduct research online, take notes to write an essay in proper format, and use ideas, text, and graphics...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 3
If you're looking to set your class up for writing effective arguments, try out this idea. While originally created with freedom as a guiding idea, the activity could easily be adapted for other themes. As a class, create a chart of...
Nemours KidsHealth
Vision
From the iris and retina to glasses and contact lenses, learners will be excited to see what activities are in store for them as they learn about the complex organ of the human eye.
Curated OER
HyperStudio Book Reports
Fifth graders create a HyperStudio book report after reading a novel. They work in pairs or small groups to design a HyperStudio stack about a previously-read novel. They use a variety of graphic organizers to have Students gather...
Curated OER
Request
Students play a game of questioning with the teacher after reading silently a beginning passage of text. They and teacher request specific information from each other until students are able to summarize and predict the outcome of the...
Curated OER
Paradise Lost: Bloom’s Taxonomy of Thinking Processes
Chapter II of John Milton's Paradise Lost provides the text for a series of comprehension questions crafted using Bloom's Taxonomy.
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 5
Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...
Curated OER
A Soldier's View of the American Civil War
Study and research the American Civil War in this explanatory writing lesson. Middle schoolers complete six activities to learn about the American Civil War and soldiers' views of the war. The lesson includes several options to complete...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Revolution '67, Lesson 2: What Happened in July 1967? How Do We Know?
Even in a world in which dozens of participants and curious onlookers record every controversial event, the basic facts of what happened are often in dispute. Revolution '67, Lesson 2 explores 1967 Newark, New Jersey using an examination...
Curated OER
Reading to Learn
Children learn to read and comprehend non-fiction text and explore how to relate non-fiction texts to things they already know. They then examine how to stop and think about what they are reading repeatedly to make sure they understand...
Curated OER
Making Connections
Fourth graders investigate visual imagery to aid reading comprehension. In this reading strategies lesson, 4th graders discover how visual imagery helps in comprehending a story. Students use a reader's notebook to record connections.
Curated OER
Does My Vote Count? Teaching the Electoral College
Students comprehend the purpose, function, origin, and historical development of the electoral college. They evaluate issues of fairness and representation in the electoral process, both individually and through group discussion....