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.

Third graders develop their reading superpowers in a lesson plan on fluency. After first listening to an audio recording or teacher read aloud, the class works together identifying criteria for fluent reading, focusing on phrasing, rate,...

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...

Third graders continue to develop their reading fluency in preparation for their assessment in the tenth lesson plan of this unit. Young readers are provided with a short passage on Helen Keller, which they use while working in pairs...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

The Pledge of Allegiance, the Gettysburg Address, the National Anthem, and the Preamble to the Constitution all get close attention in an exercise that asks learners to rewrite these formally-worded documents into informal language....

Encourage close reading for young learners with a lesson based on Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting. The first part of the resource guides readers through a Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA), prompting them to make...

Alice Walker's poem "Women" provides ninth graders the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to identify how a writer's choice of syntax and diction contribute to the development of the theme of the work.

In a close reading of "The Overseer" chapter from Sugar Changed the World, groups focus on the words Aronson and Budhos use to contrast the lifestyles of enslaved people and their enslavers. The whole class then engages in an...

As part of their study of Elie Wiesel's Night, individuals assume the voice of an Auschwitz survivor and craft a letter to a former SS officer who worked at the camp and claims he is not guilty of any crime. 

The point of view in a story can dramatically change the story itself. Focus on finding the points of view in various reading passages with a language arts packet, which includes fiction and nonfiction text.

Does identity come from within, or do external forces shape it? Explore the complex identity concept with a two-unit module for 12th-grade language arts. The first unit uses A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and "A Daily Joy...

It may not be 4 o'clock in the morning when you have ended these labors, but it's still time to work on textual analysis. Study the resolution of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" through the thematic lens of guilt and confession,...

How does word choice influence the meaning and tone of a text? To answer this question, class members listen to a masterful reading of a passage from David Mitchell's Black Swan Green and then work with a partner to conduct a close...

Ready, set, act! Using the fun resource, pupils patriciate in a vocabulary charades activity to practice key terms from the unit. Next, scholars work in expert research groups to read an article about the invention of the traffic signal...

A key challenge in teaching kids how to read informational text, particularly primary source documents, is finding suitable resources and then developing questions that guide readers. Never fear, help is here in the form of a series...

Scholars work in pairs to decide whether leaders wrote the Declaration of Independence for the rich and powerful or for every man. To draw their conclusion, pairs read excerpts from two historians and complete a graphic organizer...

"I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works." This colored view is the focus of a close reading activity that asks readers of The Great Gatsby to examine the way...

Elie Wiesel's Nobel Prize Acceptance speech provides young historians with an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to use evidence from the speech. They work together to analyze how Wiesel uses rhetorical devices and syntax to...

The animal kingdom is full of interesting organisms that have unique ways of surviving. Children read about different insects that have special tools for building homes and protecting themselves. When finished, learners identify the main...

Students read The Train Ride Home by Robin Solomon. In this literature response lesson, students will inspect the writing of Solomon to determine how she established a certain tone through her word choice and...

What would Ben do? Jumping off from the pseudonymous letters Ben Franklin fooled his older brother into publishing when he was still a teenager, young literary lovers dive into acting, writing, and addressing a local issue with wit and...

How much are you worth? Scholars read text dependent questions, and discuss how the text relates to self worth. They then work with partners by having written conversation to make inferences about the text. For homework, pupils correct...

Readers read more closely when they think critically about a text. Discuss the words and concepts from Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea with a class activity that asks readers to not only record...