Gain information about Clara Barton, a Civil War hero, and enhance reading comprehension skills with a worksheet that challenges scholars to read an informational passage and answer five short answer questions.  

There's nothing like the thrill of winning the big game! Fourth graders practice reading comprehension skills with a short story and series of questions.

Fables can teach us about life's morals, but they are also helpful for reviewing verb tense, spelling, and word choice. Three reading passages feature well-known fables, each with several opportunities for students to circle the correct...

Whether you teach mainstream elementary classes or older English learners, a set of reading comprehension resources is a great addition to your language arts curriculum. Ten activities each include a reading passage and set of...

Jo's decision to sell her hair to bringing her wounded father home is a pivotal and poignant scene from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Class members read the excerpt and answer four questions about the details, vocabulary, and plot...

As part of a study of the importance of the First Amendment, expert groups research different historic case studies of investigative reporting, and then the experts share their findings with jigsaw groups. The case studies include Nellie...

Marian Wright Edelman's 2014 Commencement Speech at Lewis and Clark College serves to inspire young scholars to investigate a problem in their community, to determine why the problem is important, and then to develop a plan for one thing...

Willy Wonka takes center stage in a lesson about direct and indirect characterization. Scholars read a passage from the story about Wonka's Grand Entrance and watch a film clip of the same, noting examples of direct and indirect...

An interactive resource introduces users to dictionaries, glossaries, and thesauri and the significant differences among these reference guides. Users learn which reference is best for which kind of search, examine sample entries from...

High school juniors learn how to construct a strong argument by crafting a claim and using neutral language backed by evidence from reliable sources. To do so, they learn to evaluate sources and evidence to support claims. They then...

Although this is part of a series, lesson plan nine has your class take a break from their close study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) text to read the firsthand account “Teaching Nepalis to Read, Plant, and...

How can you read a character's tone? What about a narrator's tone? Analyze Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with a activity that focuses on how word choice can change tone and how tone can affect the...

Read. Stop. Think. Scholars use a reading strategy to process the challenging text, "The Vietnam Wars." They read a paragraph and then stop to think about the text and its meaning. Readers then go on to work with partners and make notes...

What's the best thing on the menu? Scholars enter the room, complete a gallery walk of menus to choose a food to pretend to order, and then discuss how they made the decision. Next, they read The Omnivore's Dilemma and relate their...

Scholars continue making connections between the article "Sudanese Tribes Confront Modern War" and A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They talk with partners to discuss how the article helps them understand a character's point of...

Middle schoolers use a reader's dictionary to locate words they do not know in chapter 6 of A Long Walk to Water. They then turn attention to gist and work on a Salva/Nya anchor chart to record what happens to the characters....

Let's compare! One pair of scholars adds to the Salva/Nya anchor chart by gathering evidence about the characters from chapters 14 and 15 of A Long Walk to Water. The rest of the class pairs work on adding to the Survival anchor chart....

Text annotations help readers track essential ideas. Pupils continue reading and annotating an informational article about Sudanese tribes, connecting it with A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They also begin writing about their...

Take a stand. Scholars consider what it means to take a stand in A Long Walk to Water. They complete an activity by taking a stand and moving to a labeled section of the room that matches their opinion. Readers then examine text...

Let's get creative! As part of a mid-unit assessment, scholars create a piece of artwork illustrating the theme from Laurence Yep's novel, Dragonwings. Additionally, pupils use a graphic organizer to identify figurative language in...

Lights, camera, action! Viewers discuss a video about the Great Bear Rainforest Remote Camera Project. As they watch, they find the gist, determine the meaning of unknown words, and analyze the features of a documentary as an...

Television or radio? Scholars read pages 18-28 of The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth to discover why Farnsworth thought TV was better than radio. They determine the gist of the section and then look closer...

Solve the world's problems. Class members move on to section two of Investigating the Scientific Methods with Max Axiom Super Scientist and complete a similar activity as in the previous lesson. Next, they carry out a first read to...

Quiz time! Serving as the mid-unit assessment, scholars complete a Two Opinions Word Sort activity. In addition, they read an article about the importance of sports in America and answer text-based questions.