Students investigate the purposes of state and local government. They categorize newspaper articles into state and local issues. Pupils summarize nonfiction text. Students given an oral presentation on a news report to the class.

Students learn how to answer questions correctly.  In this writing lesson, students learn the acronym RASP and view model responses for each part of the writing strategy.  Students practice using the RASP model to answer...

Do people really need “a newer, bigger Holocaust” in order to change? Or is it possible that by making text-to-self connections to the stories of others people that they can change? In order to connect to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, class...

Under construction, this lesson focuses on Canto Familia, a collection of poetry about Gary Soto's experiences growing up in California's Imperial Valley. Representative of the experiences of many Latinos, the poems also address themes...

Show the connection between the main idea and supporting details with a graphic organizer. Pupils fill in the main idea of a text in the circle and the supporting ideas in the boxes connected to the circle.

“Be glad that all things sort so well.” To make text-to-self connections to Shakespeare’s play, class members engage in a guided imagery exercise prior to reading Act IV, scene i of Much Ado About Nothing (the wedding of Claudio and...

Eleventh graders listen to a brief history activity about the 40's and 50's mid-West America and the Migrant workers that worked the fields. Next, learners will read a short story written by Tomas Rivera (both in Spanish and English)....

A new baby means a lot of changes for Peter! Ezra Jack Keats presents this common childhood experience in his story Peter's Chair, the context of a detailed vocabulary study. Before you read, introduce the three new words scholars...

First, next, and last, the elements of chronological order. In every story or text one can find a series of events that occur one after the other. To help learners with visual impairments conceptualize chronological order, this...

Students brainstorm a list of things they already know about the history of Fairfax County, Virginia. After reading a primary source document, they discuss the similarities and differences between their prior knowledge and what they...

Summarizing a text means being able to identify supporting details. Your class can learn about transportation workers in Chicago as they read a one-page informational passage. When they are finished reading they'll explain what they've...

Beginning writers practice writing and reading from left to right using green and red dots. You'll need notecards with a green dot on the left side and a red dot on the right side. Do your learners understand that print moves from left...

Lesson 2 is part of a twenty-two lesson unit on boat safety and water sports. The focus in this lesson is on personal flotation devices. There are reasons why the law requires PFDs. Click on the resource link at the bottom of the page to...

Considering adding more research to your curriculum? Check out this idea. The assignment example, which connects to the Common Core, is written for a lesson on "The Scarlet Ibis." However, you could adapt the bigger idea to almost any...

What happens next? Work on story sequence with a lesson plan that prompts kids to put a story back in order. Additionally, they discuss what would happen if one event was missing from the sequence.

Eighth grades can master the ELA Common Core standards! Show your learners the connection between classroom activities and assignments and the standards with this set of "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been rewritten as an...

The non-fiction book Art Around the World by Heather Leonard serves as inspiration for learning how art reflects cultures and values. New vocabulary and background knowledge are fleshed out before reading the story. Afterward, the class...

Learners annotate text from The Great Gatsby before working through a character development map. They then use text evidence in a final essay to describe the connection between central ideas and character development.

“Thou know’st ‘tis common; all that lives must die/Passing through nature to eternity.” Grief, and the response to grief and loss, is the focus of a series of activities that uses Hamlet as a launchpad. Groups examine Act I, scene ii to...

Emanuel Leutze's painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. Alexander Gardner's photograph of Abraham Lincoln. What do these works of art tell us about the character of these American Presidents? After examining the techniques the...

Let's work together! Using the collaborative resource, scholars work in triads to begin section two of their storyboards about Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the television. They then practice using linking words and phrases to...

Students explore world literature through completing several varied exercises. In this compare and contrast lesson students compare and contrast stories and how time and culture impacts the stories.

Round out your unit on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis with a series of reading comprehension questions. As kids read, they challenge each other to answer specific connection questions from the text.

After reading The Great Gatsby, groups return to the text and note passages where Fitzgerald uses symbols and color imagery in his narrative. They then develop a presentation that explains the context, the implications, and possible...