Curated OER
Using the Internet to Challenge Young Writers
Designed as a professional development exercise to introduce teachers to the Internet, the activities in this resource ask novice web surfers to access a series of sites, bookmark them, and answer question about information found on the...
Curated OER
Reader Response
Fifth graders reflect upon different concepts of Language Arts while reading literature. In the novel Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt, the characters discover a spring of eternal youth. After reading the first several chapters of...
Curated OER
Poetry Cyberbook
Emerging poets design a website and then post seven original poems as well as their written critique of these poems. Although the resource mentions Inspiration and FrontPage technologies, any software could be substituted.
Curated OER
Bridging Communication
Students investigate how to create drawings using a word processing program. They examine the use of draw tools in Microsoft Word. They combine drawing with the patterns they made for a truss bridge projects. They follow the teacher's...
Virginia Department of Education
Synthesizing to Support a Thesis- Big Picture Emphasis
Help your researchers as they begin to develop a topic for research with these worksheets. Included are two nicely designed graphic organizers that assist students in narrowing and researching their topic, and an efficient...
Curated OER
I'm Published! A Parts of Speech Book
Reinforce the importance of the writing process with this publication instructional activity. Elementary and middle schoolers compose a parts of speech book which includes one page each for nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,...
Curated OER
Making Inferences While Identifying Similes and Metaphors
Use this activity to study similes and metaphors and the inferred meaning. In this language arts activity, 5th graders write their own similes and metaphors. A worksheet is provided for extension work or to check understanding as homework.
Curated OER
My Senator and Me: A Dog's-Eye View of Washington, D.C.
Although this legislative process lesson plan is designed to accompany a specific text, it is valuable independently. Young learners participate in a picture walk (worksheet included) through My Senator and Me:...
Curated OER
Using Color as a Pre-Writing Tool
To better understand how to compose a clear and well-organized paper, learners read short passages, write summaries, and make colored graphic organizers. This is a fully developed three-day lesson with suggested assessments.
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast: Literary Analysis
Great for a reading intervention or remedial Language Arts class, this activity uses two stories from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III ("Terri Jackson" and "Mary Lou" to reinforce note-taking skills, story elements, and comparing...
Curated OER
Original Children's Books
Bring the fun and creativity of children's stories to your language arts class. Middle schoolers write, revise, and publish an original student book which incorporates the elements of a short story. They put their story in the form of a...
Curated OER
Understanding Character
Readers practice character analysis by reviewing Gary Soto's short story "La Bamba" with the whole class (anything you've read together will work). They design t-shirts that feature traits and story elements to reveal the nature of a...
Curated OER
Summarizing with James and the Giant Peach
Elementary readers in literature groups practice summarizing chapter-by-chapter with Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach. Focus on main idea, supporting details, and the 5 Ws. Unfortunately, a clever "peach" graphic organizer to which...
Curated OER
Conversations about childhood
Encourage your class to discuss their childhood with other classmates using the six questions listed here. After sharing their answers, learners write a paragraph detailing general information about their childhood. This plan is designed...
Curated OER
Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman
Do your young readers know that poems can be performed as a team? They listen to a few examples from Paul Fleischman's book Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, paying attention to how the how readers work together....
Curated OER
Technoartist
Students explore the Microsoft paint program to examine artwork styles and recognize certain features. In this graphic art instructional activity, students incorporate computer technology with visual arts while acquiring basic computer...
Curated OER
America's Civil Rights Movement, Cubing
Students explore cubing as a graphic organizer to better explain the key concepts of the Civil Rights Movement and take positions on key concepts regarding the Movement.
Curated OER
Silver Blaze and Other Stories
In this Silver Blaze and Other Stories reading and study guide worksheet, young scholars respond to 8 multi-step short answer, multiple choice, and graphic organizer questions. The questions are designed to be answered before, while, and...
Curated OER
Community Ripple
Originally designed to be used along with a text that is not included, this plan contains a graphic organizer and word guessing game to help readers use decoding strategies to gain new vocabulary. A set of questions relating to community...
Curated OER
Mysterious Plot Problems
Your readers explore plot patterns in mysteries by identifying problems first in Two-Minute Mysteries by Donald J. Sobol and then in The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. To gain access to the worksheets, graphic organizers and...
Curated OER
Fahrenheit 451: KWHL Strategy
Turn your readers into "examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators," with a KWHL strategy designed for Fahrenheit 451. Individuals fill out a KWHL graphic organizer about censorship and then share responses with a group. The...
Curated OER
Stereotype Characters Activity
Here is a lesson designed for middle schoolers which helps them recognize stereotypes one way or another against a particular group of people. They also determine what may have motivated the author to use a stereotype in the first place....
Austin Independent School District
Social Studies Strategies: Concept of a Definition Map
Model for your class members how to use a definition map to make connections between new words and prior knowledge. Although the strategy is designed for social studies classes, the approach can be use at any grade level and in any...
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.