What does it mean to be alone and isolated? What would you do if you were all alone in a strange place? Kids ponder these questions as they prepare to read Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Enhance reader comprehension! Examine different comprehension strategies with your second, third, and fourth graders. They discuss the strategy of questioning by developing their own comprehension questions to help improve their memory...

Prior to reading Maus I and II, class members fill in a KWL chart to determine what they want to learn and how to find information about World War II and the Holocaust. Consider gathering packets of information and research sites before...

Scholars examine the strategy of making a story map or outline to identify the main elements of a story. They discuss the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a story, in an outline form. As a class they read a short story, answer the...

The whys and wherefores of anticipation guides are detailed in a resource that models how to craft statements for this reading strategy.

Let your learners voice their opinions on morals and human rights with an anticipation guide for Asa Butterfield's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Before reading the novel, kids read several statements that encourage them...

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...

"Mistakes are necessary; therefore, we shouldn't shelter children from the world." Class members agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or disagree with a series of statements related to concepts explored in The Catcher in the Rye....

What does your class know about the 1960s? Introduce your unit on S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders with a K-W-H-L chart, which encourages kids to list what they already know about the time period, what they would like to know, how they...

Examine the text structure of a memo with this worksheet. Eighth to twelfth graders decide if the purpose of a memo is to motivate an action or to provide information to the reader. They explore new vocabulary and make predictions prior...

Readers use Bloom's Taxonomy to create multi-level questions about Pearl Buck's The Good Earth. 

The non-fiction book Art Around the World by Heather Leonard serves as inspiration for learning how art reflects cultures and values. New vocabulary and background knowledge are fleshed out before reading the story. Afterward, the class...

To generate interest in and enable readers to connect to The Things They Carried, class members write about what they carry—both tangible and intangible things. The class then makes a list of these things and compares the list to...

How did free and enslaved blacks work to craft freedom for themselves and their families before the Civil War? Young historians read about the life of Thomas Day, a free black man who also owned slaves and had abolitionist ties in...

What a great resource to share! Based on the book Lost Names by Richard Kim, this valuable lesson focuses on the Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII. Additionally, it employs first-person journaling as a mode of understanding themes...

Is Antigone relevant to today's readers? After reading Sophocles' tragedy, scholars must decide if the themes are universal and timeless. Class members engage in a series of activities designed to have them closely consider the...

A paragraph from John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley provides English language learners with an opportunity to practice strategies for answering guiding questions about the academic text. Class members locate keywords in the annotated...

Deepen the number sense of young mathematicians with this unique ordering exercise. Given a list of the numbers 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100, young learners must determine where the numbers from a second list fit in the sequence. To increase...

Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and A. Philip Randolph developed different views on how to advance civil rights for African Americans. Class members research these famous figures and their strategies before developing...

Let's get visual. Pupils plan visual displays to accompany their upcoming opinion speech presentations. Additionally, they practice editing sentences for clarity before revising their speech drafts.

First graders read fluently. In this phonics instructional activity students practice reading strategies for fluency. They write a response in their journal about the book read in class.

Learners consider various reading strategies to improve their understanding and fluency. They review their assessment task and rubric for how their work will be evaluated. They read a story and predict what will happen by recording...

Readers test their reading comprehension after reading a nonfiction text about Paleo Indians. (This text is in Alabama: It's History and Geography, but other texts can be used.) After reading the nonfiction article as a class, they...

Set the stage for Nightjohn, Gary Paulsen's young adult novel about slavery set shortly before the Civil War, by asking readers to indicate whether they agree or disagree with several statements that are connected to issues...