Odell Education
Making Evidence-Based Claims: Grade 6
In order to make evidence-based claims, one must be able to draw explicit information from text. From here, learners take that information, analyze the text to develop a deeper understanding, and connect with the information in order to...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Exploring Text with the iMovie Application
Get your class going on one of the final assessments for a unit on short stories by introducing iMovie and its main features. In this tenth lesson in a series of fourteen, pupils take some time to explore iMovie before conducting an...
EngageNY
Reading for Gist: “Middle Ages” Excerpt 1
Dig deep. Scholars dig deep for meaning while reading Middle Ages Excerpt 1. They begin by finding unfamiliar words and adding them to a word catcher. Pupils then take a close look at adversity in the text and complete an...
Curated OER
Because of Winn-Dixie
Take an in-depth look at a passage from Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie. Included here is the reading passage as well as a step-by-step procedure for reading the text, a set of text-dependent questions, and a final writing...
Baruch College Writing Center
Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting Workshop
What's the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing? Show class members how to find the main ideas from informational text and condense it, restate it, or quote it directly with a series of educational activities based...
Washoe County School District
Three Skeleton Key
Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...
California Education Partners
We Are The Ship
An assessment sheds light on scholars' ability to read, gather evidence, and draft an original written composition. Learners read an informative text twice before taking notes and discussing their thoughts and textual evidence with a...
Novelinks
The Tempest: QAR
Asking questions about a text is an effective way to improve reading comprehension. Apply the Question Answer Response strategy to your unit on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. As kids read each passage, they decide if the answer...
Novelinks
Touching Spirit Bear: Directed Reading Thinking Activity
What experiences lead people to change and how do they do it? After reading about Cole's encounter with Touching Spirit Bear, readers complete the second out of a series of five activities to predict future events in the text. The...
Novelinks
Touching Spirit Bear: Question Answer Response Strategy
What types of questions help readers learn the most? Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders learn how to ask four types of questions from the Question Answer Response (QAR) reading strategy to help grow their comprehension of Touching Spirit...
EngageNY
Reading for Gist: “Middle Ages” Excerpt 2
Read and repeat. Scholars repeat the strategies for digging deeper into text from lesson two. This time they focus on Middle Ages Excerpt 2. Learners write unfamiliar words in the word catcher and use details from the text to add to the...
Read Works
Plymouth Colony
Read about the tumultuous beginning to the United States with an informational text passage about Colonial America. As young researchers peruse an article about the arrival of the Mayflower, the settlers' relationship to the neighboring...
EngageNY
Close Reading: Brown v. Board of Education
What's the connection? Scholars complete a close reading of Brown v. Board of Education and identify connections to Carlotta in A Mighty Long Way. Classmates learn new vocabulary, answer text-dependent questions, and complete a...
EngageNY
Reading for Gist, Answering Text-Dependent Questions, and Determining Author’s Purpose: Industrial Organic Food Chain
After re-reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma using a Reading Closely: Guiding Questions handout, class members use sticky notes to annotate and determine the gist of the text. Finally, they use an Author’s Purpose graphic organizer to...
EngageNY
Reading for the Gist and Answering Text Dependent Questions: Hunter-Gatherer Food Chain
Readers use sticky notes and a close reading guide to identify the gist of "My Pig" on pages 240–245 of The Omnivore's Dilemma. After reviewing their thoughts with peers, they answer text-dependent questions about the section.
EngageNY
Close Reading: Blue Creek, a Rainforest in Belize (Page 12)
Peace and quiet. After reading page 12 of The Most Beautiful Roof in the World, scholars participate in a silent conversation with a chalk talk activity. They take turns describing how the rainforest is diverse by writing on chart...
K20 LEARN
Femme Fatales - The Landlady and Mrs. Maloney: Character Analysis Across Multiple Texts
Two stories by Roald Dahl, "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "The Landlady" provide readers an opportunity to compare stories by the same author. After a close reading of the stories, teams select a character from one of the tales, craft...
Curated OER
Sonnet Explication
Students analyze close readings of poems, looking up words in the dictionary, and discussing the major parts of dictionary definitions, including word origin and parts of speech. They examine sonnets, then compare/contrast their findings.
Curated OER
Working at the Hospital
Having this reading passage handy to assess your learners' ability to process written text, practice summary with your class, and improve reading comprehension. This passage is about the people who work at the hospital. Learners read...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension: Voice of Nature
Understanding a text can be a very interesting task. Fourth graders read a passage describing the origin of an Aboriginal myth. They answer 11 comprehension questions that require them to pull key details, use context, and think...
Curated OER
The Fabric of History
African-American history is an integral part of what America is. Learners examine important events, read informational texts, and create quilts depicting specific eras in African-American history. Each image created for the quilt will be...
EngageNY
Science Talk: How do Bullfrogs Survive
Following the reading of the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, the ninth lesson in this unit involves emerging experts in a science talk about how bullfrogs survive. Looking back through the text, young scholars prepare for the...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Telling a Painting's Story
Use art museum paintings as inspiration for your class's creative writing works. Observing the paintings closely, middle and high schoolers list details and write descriptions. Their completed stories are displayed on bulletin boards...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 1
Make a study of the First Amendment and its relationship to freedom. Pupils rewrite the amendment and discuss the central idea before focusing on a specific phrase. After discussing, class members write a journal entry about the included...