How is Louisiana connected to the Holocaust? After reading The Diary of Anne Frank, eighth graders complete a research report about a survivor of the Holocaust who currently resides in Louisiana. Though the idea is a good way to...

This James and the Giant Peach worksheet provides 15 short answer questions and extension activities. They address characterization, basic reading comprehension, making personal connections to the reading, and more. The...

Readers' theater is a fun way to get kids reading with expression and improve their fluency! There is a full script here for The Three Bears with five characters to assign.

Delve into The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling with a helpful study guide. Crossword puzzles, comprehension questions, character descriptions, chapter summaries, and vocabulary exercises connect readers with the classic text of a boy...

Prior to reading Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members are presented with a problematic situation and to rate their responses as well as predict the responses of a character from the novel.

Oedipus' lack of literal and figurative vision does not mean he cannot see his guilt in the terrible fates of Laius, Jocasta, and all the lives touched by prophecy. Conclude a literary analysis unit on Sophocles' Oedipus the King with a...

Young scholars connect their lives to a story or nonfiction text. In this reading connections lesson, students make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections as they complete connections stems based on a story.

Create baseball cards for literary characters with this lesson plan. It introduces students to baseball cards, their components (stats, picture, etc.), and prompts them to draft and publish their own cards based on figures from...

Encourage your readers to make connections between texts with this resource. After compiling notes for each text read (you choose the texts), groups craft skits in which major characters from each text meet. There is a rubric for the...

What do you see? Young reader tap into the visualization process as they listen to or read a fiction story and fill out a graphic organizer. Model this first with a think-aloud, showing scholars how you visualize a familiar story. For...

Investigate "respect" with your class. They will participate in a think/share activity in which they complete sentence starters about their personal experience with "respect." Then they view a video clip in which Holocaust survivors...

As the title suggests, this packet is loaded with activities that can be used at any time. The common element in all the exercises is that they are connected to books by Dr. Seuss.

Second graders connect reading to writing by making predictions, completing text to world connections, solving problems, and more. In this reading and writing lesson plan, 2nd graders draw conclusions after reading and write them down.

Students read the book Do You Want to Be My Friend? and then use pictorial clues to determine which animal would come next. In this character lesson plan, students look at the tail of the animal to predict it.

Students create a character map of the main characters in The Tale of Despereaux. After reading the text, students create a character chart based on information they gleaned from the story. They use this information to write a letter...

Students identify the characteristics of a hero. For this character development and writing lesson, students listen to music with a hero theme and discuss the common traits of heroes. Students explore individuals and charitable...

In this visual arts worksheet, students practice connecting the dots from one to sixty-three. Students then fill in the blanks with the letters of the character they just connected the dots to.

Use a vocabulary asssignment as a quick activity between reading chapters of Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Young readers choose their favorite words from the vocabulary word list to describe Sal, Phoebe, or any other character from...

How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty...

Examine stories with a moral in a character development instructional activity. The class reads a short story written by Benjamin Franklin in which he pays too much for a toy whistle. Individuals then make text-to-self connections and...

Just what did Ben Franklin read? By juxtaposing Ben Franklin’s reading material as a young man with an analysis of his developed ideas, learners gain the opportunity to see how the influences of his youthful reading played out. Roman,...

After completing Chapter 5 of Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, readers make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections to Victor Martinez's novel by crafting journal entries addressing comments and questions to characters in...

Scholars get to know famous Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh, as an artist as well as a person. After reading personal letters and analyzing paintings, participants paint two self-portraits that represent their personality. Then, write a...