Craft your own fairy tale based on Momotaro, a Japanese story referenced in Kyoko Mori's Shuzuko's Daughter. A list of nouns guide learners in writing their own story, and predicting what might happen in the novel.

Encourage good reading habits with an activity that asks class members to examine the title and cover of Out of the Dust, and then make predictions about the setting of and events in the tale.  

Before beginning The Things They Carried, class members are asked to use a KWHL chart to record what they know about war, what they want to know, and where they might find answers to their questions. Groups then research...

Activate your pupils' thinking before reading chapter five of Ordinary People. Learners decide whether they agree or disagree with six statements and discuss their ideas in small groups. They then read chapter five and determine...

Question what you read with a lesson based on Bloom's Taxonomy. As kids read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, they formulate questions with cues from a graphic organizer, and answer them to work on critical...

Chapter 12 of The Hobbit provides the text for an exercise that asks readers to use the QAR strategy to develop and respond to questions about story.

Do students really need to be taught how to read cartoons, comic books, and comic strips? Yes. Just as they need to learn how to read other forms of graphic text such as diagrams, photos, timetables, maps, charts, and tables. Young...

Conflicts happen. Learning how to manage conflicts in mature and positive ways is an important part of social-emotion growth. The lesson offers insight into behaviors that exacerbate conflicts as well as suggestions for how to resolve...

As an exercise in self-awareness and improvement, class members create a Conflict Shield listing 12 skills they believe are the most useful in conflict resolution. They then color the ones they have mastered while leaving uncolored those...

Negotiating can be a win/win experience if the involved parties apply the skills and techniques offered in a lesson about negotiating to settle differences.

To generate interest in reading Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel Unwind, class members engage in a Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA) that asks them to examine the front and back covers, the blurbs, and "The...

The anticipation guide for Words by Heart is the first of a series of six, contains lesson plans for the activity as well as a handout to be completed individually, in pairs, or as a class. It sparks interest for the text...

The second instructional activity in a series of fourteen, this plan takes the short story basics a step further. Learners complete a quiz about the story from the previous day, discuss the text, learn about Anton Chekhov, and work in...

A reading guide designed for Jennifer Fleischner's nonfiction text, The Apaches: People of the Southwest, provides readers with three levels of comprehension questions meant to encourage higher-level thinking.

Discover the family histories that make the classroom with a family tree activity. Scholars locate information about their family, construct a family tree, and work together to tally where family members are born.  

Mirror, mirror. Hook sophomores into the benefits of positive self-talk with a lesson that asks them to reflect on the roles they play at home, at school, and in their communities. Class members fill out a “Looking At Me In My...

What are the three most important items for survival? Readers of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, ponder this question individually and share their list with a group, that must then reach consensus on the three most...

Chapter nine of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath provides the text for an exercise that asks readers to think deeply about the items the Joads left behind and what these items might represent.

As part of a discussion of The Last Lecture, class members engage in a gallery walk silent discussion by recording their responses to a series of questions and images posted about the classroom.

Here's a great way to make vocabulary words drawn from Edward Bloor's novel Tangerine memorable. Kids create a word square, and in one quadrant write the word. A picture goes in a second quadrant, the definition in a third, and a...

Is love the strongest force in the world? Delve into the themes of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas with an anticipation guide that introduces the main points of discussion. Kids mark their agreement or disagreement with...

Individuals read a series of passages from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, rank the statements from the least to the most racist or stereotypical, and share their rankings and rationales in small groups before a whole class...

The themes of The Great Gatsby are embodied in the images F. Scott Fitzgerald creates. To encourage reader interaction with the text, individuals create a symbolic representation of themselves, place themselves in the story,...

Young historians investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies the Civil Rights Movement used to end segregation in the United States. After watching an video interview with Carl Matthews and Bill Stevens who participated...