Curated OER
Persuasive Elements
Investigate letters to the editor and their persuasive qualities. Break your class into reading groups and give each one a different article. As they read, they complete a graphic organizer to record their thoughts and opinions. There is...
Curated OER
To Entertain
Second graders consider the author's purpose for writing a text. In this author's purpose lesson, 2nd graders discuss reasons why author's write a book and how it can often be for entertainment. Students read a book, provide two examples...
Curated OER
Text-To-Self Connections T-Chart
In this text-to-self worksheet, students complete an organizer, filling in boxes labeled "The author said..." and That reminds me of..." Worksheet is a blank template.
Dream of a Nation
Creating Awareness through Action Oriented Writing and Research
Middle schoolers aren't too young to feel strongly about politics, social issues, consumer rights, or environmental problems. Demonstrate the first steps toward social change with a project about action-oriented writing. Eighth...
EngageNY
Author’s Read: Final Performance Task
Scholars submit their final performance task, a letter to a publisher about an athlete's legacy. As a culminating activity, they share their work with classmates in small groups.
EngageNY
Carl Hiaasen’s Perspective of Florida: Part 2
Look it up. Scholars read Florida: A Paradise of Scandals Excerpt 1 and use a dictionary to look up any unfamiliar words. They then do a close read of the text and answer text-dependent questions. Learners analyze author perspective by...
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast Two Settings in One Text
Look for the signal words! Scholars get both instruction and practice comparing and contrasting. Although it is completely scripted, it can also serve as a detailed outline. Demonstrate this as you read a passage (included) and search...
EngageNY
Grade 10 ELA Module 2: Unit 2, Lesson 1
Rafael Trujillo was president of the Dominican Republic in the 1930s. Pupils read and analyze the first six paragraphs of Julia Alvarez's autobiographical essay "A Genetics of Justice," in which the author describes Trujillo's impact on...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment: On-Demand Writing – Conflicting Interpretations of the 13th and 14th Amendments
The authors of the court's decision and the dissenting opinion on Plessy v. Ferguson disagreed on their interpretations of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Scholars set out to show how with an on-demand writing prompt. They...
Literacy Design Collaborative
The Power of Language
There is power in words. Readers take a close look at three text to determine how language structures affect meaning, including include poems and recipes. Scholars analyze the language authors use by circling important words, underlining...
McGraw Hill
Study Guide for Frankenstein
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,...
EngageNY
Grade 12 ELA Module 2
The second module in a series for high school seniors focuses on tracking the central idea of a text across genres and from multiple author and character perspectives. Twelfth graders read a speech by Benazir Bhutto entitled "Ideas Live...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Reading Primary Sources: Darwin and Wallace
Take your classes back in time. Learners read real historical texts from both Darwin and Wallace as well as an announcement of their findings. Using guiding questions, they make inferences and draw conclusions from the information in the...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 12
Finding the central idea in a text can be as simple as deciphering the correct pieces of supporting evidence. As your class reads Stage 4 of "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" by Karen Russell, they analyze the interactions...
EngageNY
Planning for When to Include Dialogue: Showing Characters’ Thoughts and Feelings
Young writers examine dialogue conventions, including indentation, quotation marks, and expressing thoughts and feelings through a fictional text. By noticing where and when authors use dialogue, they decide how to incorporate dialogue...
Curated OER
Examining Ways to Organize Questions and Answers Within a Text
Students study questions and answers within a text to learn about writing structure and organization. In this writing structure activity, students investigate books in class by asking questions for the text. Students then format their...
Curated OER
Organizing One’s Thoughts
Learners take a closer look at the organization of written pieces. In this writing skills lesson, students examine transitions, repetition, parallelism, and other organizational patterns in writing.
Curated OER
Write Like David Shannon
Students listen to several of David Shannon's books and identify patterns in the text. They write and illustrate a story of their own in the style of David Shannon, and share their books with classmates.
Curated OER
Whose Parts Do I Have? (Wings and Things)
Students identify an animal and a body part and then matches a body part to a specific animal. This will assess their ability to sort organisms and objects into groups according to their parts and describe how the groups are formed and...
Curated OER
Emily Dickinson Poetry
Students identify a poem by Emily Dickinson for analysis. They apply a set of critical questions to a poem in order to interpret poem and find literary elements used by author. They organize information for a PowerPoint presentation...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 17: Obituary
The Cay has been criticized by groups such as the Council on Interracial Books for Children because of the way race is portrayed. Explore the argument against the book while taking the author's perspective into account. Class members...
Novelinks
Lord of the Flies: Themes and Notetaking
William Golding's Lord of the Flies is a treasure trove of symbolism and literary themes. Help your kids note the richest passages in the book with a instructional activity and graphic organizer. The instructional activity prepares...
Curated OER
Bacteria
Students study the advantages and disadvantages of bacteria. In this bacteria lesson students draw and label the different types of bacteria.
Teacher Printables
My Super Six
As pupils read a text, have them fill out six things than stand out on this sheet. There is a space for pupils to fill in a title and author as well as six separate boxes with lines and space for a diagram or illustration.