While the themes of Julius Caesar may appeal to most readers, the act of reading the play can be a challenge. A unit plan related to the popular play by Shakespeare provides lesson plans and activities designed for differentiated...

Pupils work in small groups to answer guided questions and discuss the details they found. They also read independently, improving strategies they learned to approach and question text.

"No flies fly into a closed mouth." Pupils consider the proverb's meaning as they read paragraphs 20–22 from the essay "A Genetics of Justice" by Julia Alvarez. They also engage in small-group discussions about how the author refines her...

A Reading Closely: Guiding Questions handout leads readers to discover the gist of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. While reading, pupils look closely at the words in the text and discuss their meaning. They use dictionaries when needed to answer...

To generate interest in reading Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel Unwind, class members engage in a Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA) that asks them to examine the front and back covers, the blurbs, and "The...

Take an in-depth look at a passage from Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie. Included here is the reading passage as well as a step-by-step procedure for reading the text, a set of text-dependent questions, and a final writing...

Choose your words carefully. Scholars begin by reading a line of Atticus's closing speech in To Kill A Mockingbird. Readers work independently on their note catchers, then complete a Think-Pair-Share activity with partners. They finish...

Good verses evil. Scholars make inferences after taking a close look at the short story, State of Affairs, in which Daniel Defoe goes back and forth comparing good and evil thoughts through his writing. After reading the text,...

Here is a lesson plan in which pupils connect themes and rules to live by from the story Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis to those found in the poem If by Rudyard Kipling. First, scholars discuss their reading and review Bud's...

Photos can capture a complete story in a single image. Class members closely examine a photo of a homeless camp and attempt to read the story told by the picture. They then read the caption for the photograph and compare their notes with...

The complex relationship between a teacher and his student takes center stage in an instructional activity that asks readers to pay close attention to how author Ethan Canin introduces his characters and how he develops the character of...

Middle schoolers get hip to the jive with a lesson plan about slang. They closely examine examples of slang and use context clues to infer the meaning of the terms. Groups read and summarize an article about a teacher who created a Gen Z...

Just as Bud, from the novel Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, had rules to live by, so does the poem, If by Rudyard Kipling, but how do the two relate? Pupils delve deep into the poem's third stanza, participate in a grand...

That was heroic!  Scholars quickly look over What is a Hero to determine and discuss the structure of the text. They then read the introduction and Act 1 closely to find the gist and annotate the text. They circle unfamiliar words...

Just like instant replay, it's time to take a closer look! Pupils work together to add ideas to a Close Readers Do These Things anchor chart. They then put their knowledge to the test as they read an informational article about the...

Silly journal and essay prompts may be fun to write, but they don't model the kind of writing needed for college papers and standardized tests. The 15th part in a series of 24 covers the concept of reading to write—during and after...

What experiences lead people to change and how do they do it? After reading about Cole's encounter with Touching Spirit Bear, readers complete the second out of a series of five activities to predict future events in the text. The...

Three quizzes are designed to assess readers' knowledge of events in Octavia E. Butler's Kindred. All questions are fact-based rather than asking readers to infer or interpret the text.

Asking questions about a text is an effective way to improve reading comprehension. Apply the Question Answer Response strategy to your unit on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. As kids read each passage, they decide if the answer...

What types of questions help readers learn the most? Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders learn how to ask four types of questions from the Question Answer Response (QAR) reading strategy to help grow their comprehension of Touching Spirit...

What happens next? Learn to make predictions with five short passages. As kids finish reading each passage, they jot down what they think will happen next, as well as the evidence from the text that supports their prediction.

An interactive resource teaches readers how to annotate all kinds of texts. After reading an introduction that stresses the benefits of text annotations, users examine several models and then demonstrate what they have learned by...

What is a megalomaniac? Scholars discover the word's meaning as they read and analyze paragraphs seven and eight from Julia Alvarez's essay "A Genetics of Justice." They also read Mark Memmott's article "Remembering to Never Forget" and...

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,...