Students form cooperative groups to read, discuss, and respond to a novel. They select a novel from offered choices or by criteria given by teacher and complete a culminating project on the novel from such choices as: creating a...

Students begin reading the graphic novel "Maus". Using the Internet, they discover fundamental differences between Judaism and Christianity. Using excerpts from the novel, they identify animal metaphors used for nationalities and ethnic...

Use this comprehensive packet to accompany a study of Missing May by Cynthia Rylant. Starting out with a brief author biography and background information about the novel, this guide includes materials to use throughout the entire novel....

Want your class to use critical thinking when discussing vocabulary? Go beyond the dictionary with a vocabulary activity based on Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. Kids write the word in the center of a graphic organizer that also provides...

Author Laura Ingalls Wilder takes readers back to the good ole days. In Little House in the Big Woods, she tells scholars about a family living in the woods during the 1870s. While reading, they complete sentences with vocabulary words,...

What better activity is there for summer than reading? Provide your pupils with 25 book ideas for their summer reading pursuits. A variety of different genres are represented on this list, and each book is paired with publication...

After reading the introduction to Maus I, class members use A KWHL approach to determine what they know, what they want to know, and where they can find information about World War II, the Holocaust, and other topics associated with Art...

Imagine a project that informs and entertains. Replace book reports with a bulletin board that highlights all the important elements of a novel. Readers research the author, create a timeline of events in the story, write a...

"People never notice anything." As part of their study of The Catcher in the Rye, class members adopt Holden Caulfield's approach and spend time as quiet observers of their surrounding, recording their observations/reflections in a...

Sharpen those pencils; it's time to write! Scholars begin writing the first body paragraph of their literary analysis essays. Additionally, pupils use graphic organizers to analyze a character's point of view from Laurence Yep's...

Let your class voice their opinions with a group debate activity. Before reading John Milton's Paradise Lost, they work in small groups in assigned roles to form a position about authority and rebellion, comparing a...

Prepare your class for a unit on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with an activity that works for pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading. Learners fill out a K-W-H-L chart to reflect on what they already know, what...

Chapter II of John Milton's Paradise Lost provides the text for a series of comprehension questions crafted using Bloom's Taxonomy.

How well do your pupils know My Antonia by Willa Cather? Take some time to create questions about the text. After examining a teacher model, individuals write questions that match each level of Bloom's Taxonomy and draft answers to these...

This lesson is so beneficial it makes any teacher's heart skip a beat! After readers identify words from Words by Heart, they break down unknown vocabulary with a handout detailing various prefixes and suffixes. Once they finish...

Scholars use primary documents, video clips, and legal decisions to uncover Harriet Beecher Stowe's motives for writing Uncle Tom's Cabin. They create a 21st century book jacket for the novel to capture the purpose behind Stowe's...

Students consider the implications of the Holocaust. For this World War II lesson, students read the graphic novel Maus at the end of a unit on World War II. Students discuss the impact of reading about the Holocaust as well as theme of...

Enhance a unit on historical fiction with an engaging writing lesson. Learners bring the Industrial Era to life as they compose their own historical fiction pieces based on primary source images of Pittsburgh steel workers. 

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...

"How important is freedom to you and your family?" The guiding question becomes much more powerful after your class reads and responds to a passage from a historical novel. While reading the passage, they complete a graphic organizer...

A mouse on a motorcycle—what could possibly go wrong? Using the novel study that accompanies Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle, pupils complete a brief vocabulary activity and then answer questions about the text. Next,...

What is a dynamic character? Using an interesting resource, scholars set out to answer the question. They create graphic organizers to collect details about character development as they read the novel Inside Out & Back Again. They...

Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...

High schoolers synthesize the information they've learned from each chapter of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting with a creative summarizing activity. With a graphic organizer for all of the book's chapters, readers title...