Explore language arts by completing a story worksheet in class. Readers will identify the importance of plot, setting, and character while they write their own short story. They also retell their story to a classmate and participate in a...

A video leads off this activity on fables, introducing the class to this important form of traditional storytelling. The group defines fable and hears an explanation of the origin of this type of folk tale. They summarize the story they...

Help young readers learn to read and interpret complex text independently. Teach young children to ask interpretive questions and use the text itself to answer them. Use art, word play and drama to provide a deeper understanding of...

Students choose a short story or book and a student takes on the role of one of the characters in the story. They complete an interview worksheet and then students question each other further about the character they are playing.

Fourth graders participate in a play to work on seeing events from a different perspective. Some of them are reporters, some cameramen and women, and others are interviewed. They put themselves in the shoes of the people in the book...

Students identify cause and effect relationships in a short story. After reading a short story, they participate in a discussion of how one event in a story can lead to several others. Students are then paired for a matching task that...

Here is an inventive, and educationally rich way to conduct a literature study of the book, The Midwife's Apprentice. After the book has been read, learners get into three groups. One group is assigned the task of being the writers....

Learners read and discuss a story in Spanish. Creating a poster board, they write the names of the characters in the story. In pairs, they write sentences about their characters they have chosen to role play. They practice and perform...

Students participate in a lesson plan/activity where they learn to share their toys and crayons. They listen to a short story about sharing read aloud by the teacher to the students. They discuss the questions in the story and the...

Learners investigate Chinese culture by reading their folk tales.  In this creative writing activity, students practice identifying the different elements in a folk tale and examine the related vocabulary.  Learners organize...

Young scholars explore stock characters and pantomime. In this comic theater lesson, students examine an ancient Greek statuette depicting a comic actor and an ancient Roman lamp decorated with a comic mask. Young scholars pantomime...

Students act as reporters to develop interview skills. In this interview lessons, students develop the skills needed to use anecdotes and quotes to make an interview interesting. They practice asking questions over and above the 5 W's so...

Students participate in a game designed to aid in storytelling. They spread a rumor to each member of their team using information found in the accompanying worksheets. Students earn points when they report their rumor correctly. ...

Learners explore the history of Montana's Native Americans by reading James Welch's Fools Crow. Set shortly after the Civil War, the novel focuses on a young Blackfoot Indian and his tribe. Over the course of several weeks, class members...

Learners explore communications by discussing deceased individuals. In this past tense lesson, students analyze which verbs to use when speaking of a person who is no longer living. Learners read a story about the race car driver Michael...

Third graders read Pepita Talks Twice and define the character traits of respect and responsibility. They write their examples of the characters traits on a character trait doll. Students recognize the character traits of respect and...

Students create drawings from their favorite book with sidewalk chalk.  In this reading comprehension lesson, students read Frog and Toad All Year and investigate the character known as the Ice Cream Monster.  Students...

Students participate in a simulation where they act as detectives to locate a missing item using questioning and prediction techniques. Then they read a portion of a story, write a prediciton paragraph, and then finish reading the story.

Students listen to Ruth Stiles Gannett's book My Father's Dragon. They predict the outcome of the story. They discuss the events in the story. They sequence the events in the story.

Students identify themes in Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet by analyzing the film or text. In this tolerance lesson, students create their own Elizabethan era terms related to interacting with different social groups. In groups,...

Ninth graders examine how modern issues of the world affect their lives. They listen to a lecture about the differences between developed and developing countries, act out physical representations of charts and pictures on the overhead,...

Students, after playing a game of animal 'identity', review and practice key vocabulary words orally and written into their notebooks for this lesson. They read a story about a new arrival at the zoo and answer text questions together or...

Students . In this organization lesson, students have a general discussion about sports cards and make a chart to answer the questions. Students read the baseball card story from USA Today. Students watch a web video about sports in New...

Third graders write a petition to a school figure, get signatures from other students, share the petition with the appropriate authority, and then work as leaders to carry out the group's solution.