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Identifying Author's Purpose
The multi-lesson, 47-page packet contains everything you need to ensure kids can recognize the clues provided to identify the type of text, the intended audience, and the author's purpose in writing the passage.
New York City Department of Education
What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue: How Did Jazz Influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
How did jazz influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Class members read some of Ellison's non-fiction writings about blues and jazz, listen to records, watch videos, and engage in student-centered discussions. They then produce podcasts...
Santa Ana Unified School District
Getting to the Core: Early American Poets
How do poets convey emotion and represent their views of life? Pupils learn more about Whitman and Dickinson through the unit and analyze their bold reinvention of craft and style for poets to come. Looking at classic pieces such as...
C3 Teachers
Black Women Writers: What Gets Black Women Heard?
Zora Neal Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou are featured in a guided inquiry unit. High schoolers research the lives and works of these and other Black women writers and craft an argument, using evidence from their research, to...
Curated OER
The Science of Microbes
Looking for an interesting text to share the world of microbes with your middle school classroom? The edition contains explanations, worksheets, experiments, discussions, and links to outside sources for a true and complete...
Los Angeles Unified School District
Capitalism and Socialism
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...
American Chemical Society
Energy Foundations
Only 10 percent of an incandescent bulb's energy is used to create light; the remaining 90 percent is heat. In the unit of activities, young chemists examine energy through hands-on activities, videos, discussions, and...
Curated OER
Nonfiction Genre Mini-Unit: Persuasive Writing
Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.
Cleburne Independent School District
Grade 6 English Language Arts and Readiness: Persuasive
What is the best way to compare and contrast viewpoints on the same topic? A persuasive writing unit plan addresses targeted skills, vocabulary, instructional strategies, and suggested resources that would be perfect for developing writers.
West Jefferson High School
The Novel — Honor
For classes tackling To Kill a Mockingbird, this lesson plan sets readers up for discussions or essay writing with questions and prompts. The prompts encourage individuals to explore beyond the novel itself, looking at...
Louisiana Department of Education
Fahrenheit 451
In his 2013 introduction to Fahrenheit 451, Neil Gaiman states, “Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” In this extraordinary unit plan, readers "explore the power of written language to educate and...
Hood River County School District
Text Structure: Features and Organization
Teach learners how to interact with both fiction and non-fiction text with a packet of activities and worksheets. After looking over text structure and the difference in text features between different types of writing,...
PACER Center
The Peer Advocacy Guide
Teasing, mocking, and disrespect can be the hallmarks in the life of those with disabilities. Disrupt the cycle of abuse with a toolkit designed to turn peers into advocates for all those who are bullied. Everything needed to create a...
ReadWriteThink
Biography Project: Research and Class Presentation
I Have A Dream ... that after the lesson, all individuals master the reading, writing, researching, listening, and speaking skills the biography project helps them develop. Martin Luther King, Jr. serves as a topic example for a model...
Radford University
Sleep and Teen Obesity: Is there a Correlation?
Does the number of calories you eat affect the total time you sleep? Young mathematicians tackle this question by collecting their own data and making comparisons between others in the class through building scatter plots and regression...
University of South Florida
Fcat Express: Author's Purpose
Learn about author's purpose and then answer some self-assessment questions after the lesson. Continue clicking the next button to get to more information.
TES Global
Blendspace: Authors Purpose
A five-part learning module with links to videos and an image on author's purpose.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Evaluate Tone in Various Media for Audiences and Purposes
This lesson features several weather videos, both real and created, to help students understand how information and the tone changes based on the audiences and the purposes for the presentation.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Part 2 Reading: Informational Text: Author Point of View
Learn four questions you can ask while reading an informational text to determine the author's point of view. Includes practice worksheet.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Explain the Controlling Idea, Purpose, and Distinguish Details
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, students will learn how to pinpoint the controlling idea, which not only identifies the main idea, but also answers questions about the author's goal or...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Prairie Changes [Pdf]
"Prairie Changes" is a one page, nonfiction passage about the changes in the prairie over time and the effect it has on plants, animals, and habitats. It is followed by an open-ended question which requires students to provide evidence...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [Pdf]
"Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." is a one page, biographical passage about Martin Luther King, Jr. It is followed by an open-ended question which requires students to provide evidence from the story; it includes determining the author's...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Compare/contrast Themes and Genres in Literary Texts
Determining the theme is not easy; you have to use the clues the author leaves to figure it out yourself. The author implies information about the story through plot points, setting, and characters. You infer and draw conclusions based...
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: Don't Buy a Ford Ever Again, Ca. 1960
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read an advertisement and some background information and answer questions about comprehension, persuasive techniques, vocabulary, author's purpose, and more. Links to a paired text and paired...