Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...

Who is Mo Willems? Explore the author with your class. Learners read books written by Willems, compare and contrast the characters therein, and make predictions about what will happen. Finish off this author study by having small groups...

Gradually build understanding of author's point of view through a scaffolded set of exercises. Moving from direct instruction, to collaborative work, and eventually to independent practice, these steps will assist your class in...

Jump back into expository writing and analysis at the start of a new school year! Start with a review of an authors' stylistic choices in diction, syntax, treatment of subject matter, and figurative language. Writers choose a text to...

Young scholars read novel, Little House in the Big Woods, explore web sites and other resources devoted to author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, complete Venn Diagram showing ways they and author are alike and different, and create diorama, read...

Explore connections within and between informational texts with this lesson about encyclopedia articles. Middle schoolers write encyclopedia articles focusing on topics in American history. They discuss how to determine credibility...

Home in on the quote on this page to explore setting, the author's and character's voices, and plot in Willa Cather's My Antonia. Pupils draw a picture of what is described in the quote, discuss the content, and make connections to their...

Is there such a thing as fate/luck? Can one fight destiny? As part of their study of Chinua Achebe's purpose in writing Things Fall Apart, class members answer these questions from Achebe's point of view and then from William...

Reinforce comprehension of informational text. This is a one-on-one lesson intended to build an internal dialogue the reader can use to boost overall comprehension. They work independently with a tutor or teacher to read a nonfiction...

Young historians research the connections between their personal histories and the histories of our country to gain a deeper understanding of who they are. To begin, class members write about an object that they consider significant to...

Connect literature (Jack the Builder) with mathematical concepts. In a series of computation, geometry and number sense activities, pupils count on to add, count back to subtract, build cylinders, cones, and rectangular prisms, and name...

Students listen to the teacher read a book entitled, Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. In groups, students create KWL charts concerning the book, the author, and the author's writing style. In groups, students research topics about the book and its...

Fifth graders creat a brochure about a specific author in which they are familiar with. They research information about the author using the Internet and other research sources. They create the brochure on the computer with a small group.

Use this comprehensive packet to accompany a study of Missing May by Cynthia Rylant. Starting out with a brief author biography and background information about the novel, this guide includes materials to use throughout the entire novel....

There are so many authors of short stories, and your class can have the chance to study quite a few. This seventh lesson in a series of fourteen continues the decision-making process for the final assessment: a short story author study....

How might different authors approach the same topic? Scholars read a paragraph from an informational text about Canadian refugees using the resource. Next, they participate in a jigsaw activity to connect real-life refugees' experiences...

It's time to make some connections! Scholars complete a close reading of the speech I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr. They use an I Have a Dream Speech Gist Note-catcher, and I Have a Dream text-dependent questions to guide their...

Reading a scientific article about cross-species synchronization may sound like a yawner. But "Monkey See, Monkey Do" is a fascinating tale that just happens to be about yawning, within and across species. After a close reading, class...

Writers take a look at how to gather evidence from the information text in the unit that connects to Salva and Nya’s story. They complete a Gathering Evidence from Informational Texts sheet to guide their work. Pupils then use the...

Students examine and identify the characteristics of the different genres of literature. After being read and reading various stories, they identify how different books by the same author carry the same story elements. They discuss how...

Examine the power of persuasion and have learners consider how it influences events in their own lives. After reading and analyzing informational texts to understand the author's purpose, class members take a written test and craft a...

Why did Chinua Achebe write "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" in response to Conrad's novel? As part of a study of Things Fall Apart, class members conduct a socratic seminar focused on Achebe's purpose and...

The author study gets an update in a research project designed for high schoolers. Scholars search for information about literary figures that connects them to their times, their works, their themes, and other writers. Researchers also...

If you have a favorite author, you probably recognize their style. Conduct a close read of the text, marking it up as they go. Collaborative sharing time and a summary writing prompt follow the main activity.