GED Testing Service
A Close Look at Close Reading
Take a close look at this 14-page resource that contains everything you want to know about close reading, from what it is and is not, to suggestions for how to choose a text and craft text-dependent questions that encourage readers to...
Bearsden Academy's English Blog
Close Reading Homework Booklet
Wind turbines, daylight savings time, noise pollution, social problems. To develop close reading skills, high schoolers examine pairs of articles presenting opposing viewpoints of the same topics and respond to questions that require not...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Close Reading in the Classroom
Close reading is key to the analysis and interpretation of literature. A close reading of the title and the epigraph of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” offers readers an opportunity to examine how even single words or names can...
Odell Education
Reading Closely for Textual Details: "We, as a people, will get to the promised land!"
Take another look—there are probably more details than readers realize. Scholars analyze nine texts in a five-part unit that contains 21 activities to find textual details. Activities include close reading, independent reading,...
EngageNY
Close Reading of Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle: Main Ideas about the Bullfrog
As your class reaches the end of the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, the seventh lesson plan in this literary unit helps third graders transition from reading narrative to expository writing. Scholars develop their note-taking skills...
Museum of Science
Design a Submarine
Don't just sink the boat. Using a closed container as a submarine, pupils experiment to see what to add to the container to make it float, sink to the bottom, and hover in the middle. After finding one option, learners see if they can...
Curated OER
Accounting Concepts: M & M Closing Entries
High schoolers use M&M's to learn the abstract concept of Closing Entries, while simultaneously working with T-accounts on the board..
Curated OER
Teaching Julius Caesar: A Differentiated Approach
While the themes of Julius Caesar may appeal to most readers, the act of reading the play can be a challenge. A unit plan related to the popular play by Shakespeare provides lesson plans and activities designed for differentiated...
Curated OER
"As You Like It" by William Shakespeare
Jacque's soliloquy from Act II, scene ii of As You Like It sets the stage for a close reading exercise that models how to approach difficult, dense text and enables readers to practice reading comprehension and analysis skills. Learners...
Mr. Ambrose
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Good discussion questions, quizzes, and tests teach as well as assess. Readers of The Great Gatsby will learn much from the materials in a 36-page packet designed to help students prepare for the AP Literature exam. Included in the...
Curated OER
A4 Containers
Fifth graders determine which container made from a single sheet of paper has the greatest volume. They look the solutions made by three different students before working on their own examples.
EngageNY
Close Read, Part 2: “Taggot, the Blacksmith’s Daughter”
It is just a figure of speech. Readers look for figurative language as they read Taggot, the Blacksmith’s Daughter. They complete a Figurative Language graphic organizer by recording and identifying the types of figurative language found...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Scottsboro Boys and "To Kill a Mockingbird": Two Trials for the Common Core
Here's a must-have resource for anyone reading To Kill A Mockingbird or using Harper Lee's award-winning novel in a classroom. The packet contains Miss Hollace Ransdall's first-hand, factual account of the trials of the Scottsboro Boys,...
Student Achievement Partners
"The Glorious Whitewasher" from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain with Mini-Assessment
It's the classic scene: Tom Sawyer is whitewashing a fence. Expose your learners to Mark Twain's humor while reinforcing reading comprehension. Eighth graders are encouraged to read and reread, achieving as much exposure to the text as...
Curated OER
The Sun Also Rises: A Close Look at the Cloze
A passage from Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises offers class members an opportunity to demonstrate their reading comprehension skills.
Curated OER
Close and Shut
Open and closed - or open and shut? Using context clues in ten multiple choice questions, students choose whether they should use "closed" or "shut" to fill in the blank. This activity could be great addition to a vocabulary lesson in a...
Curated OER
Open and Closed Circuits
Students distinguish between open and closed circuits. In this open and closed circuits lesson plan, students use their bodies as electric conductors and understand how electricity is a form of energy.
Pennsylvania Department of Education
Guess the Container
Young scholars become familiar with appropriate containers for various shapes. In this container lesson, students find containers that best fit their object.
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
"What should we have for dinner?" "What am I eating?" "Where did it come from?" These three questions are at the heart of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Pollan's book provides some very...
University of Washington
The Carbon Cycle
When it comes to the carbon cycle, the sky really is the limit. The lesson begins with observing a closed ecosystem in a bottle. Then, scholars discuss and answer questions on the carbon dioxide and oxygen cycles.
Facing History and Ourselves
The Audacity of a Vote: Susan B. Anthony’s Arrest
Susan B. Anthony's speech "Is It a Crime for Women to Vote?" takes center stage in a lesson that asks class members to consider how they might respond to what they consider an unjust law. Groups work through the speech paragraph by...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 6: Level 9
Did you know that an acre of trees can absorb as much carbon dioxide as a car emits in 11,000 miles of driving? Such fun facts abound in a short reading comprehension passage detailing the benefits of parks and rooftop gardens. After...
Achieve The Core
Linda R. Monk, Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution - Grade 8
“We the people . . .” Thus begins the Preamble to the Constitution. Using a close reading approach, class members examine an excerpt from Linda Monk’s article that traces how the interpretation of these words has evolved. Some of your...
Yummy Math
Penny Wars
As the saying goes, a penny saved is a penny earned. Young scholars use a penny activity to earn their way to an understanding of volume. Given three different-sized cylindrical containers, individuals make calculations to determine the...