Use the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin to teach your third grade class about descriptive writing. Following a teacher read-aloud of the story, the class brainstorms a list of adjectives describing the main character. Students use this list...

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass provides the text for a study of how writers bring characters to life. Using the provided character mapping worksheets, readers respond to questions and then write a short character sketch.

Learning to read is not a simple task, but there are methods for assisting pupils as they develop literacy skills. The first four pages of this resource include information about language development and reading development, as well as...

Twenty insightful questions follow a read aloud of the story, Amos and Boris by William Steig. Scholars then show what they know through completion of a cause and effect chart, reading fluency assessment, and a written...

Learners create and publish a newspaper that reflects and explains pioneer and medieval societies. They become newspaper writers for a specific time period. They adopt a holistic approach to exploring community life in medieval and...

Make learning the parts of a book fun by having pupils construct their own glossary entries, table of contents, and title page. Beginning with a review of text features and a hunt for examples, kids use previously written fables to...

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass serves as the anchor text for a lesson on symbolism. Readers use the provided worksheets to examine the symbols in the novel as well as in the world around them.

What does a non-fiction text look like? Examine the text features of non-fiction. Middle and high schoolers read non-fiction passages provided by their instructor and analyze the texts for word choice, details, and organization.

Eyes on the finish line. Serving as the first part of the end of unit assessment, learners answer questions based on a text about how to write a graphic novel. Using what they've learned, they then create a storyboard about the invention...

Examine the text features of non-fiction. Start the lesson by reading editorial samples provided by their instructor and analyze the texts for word choice, details, and organization. An editorial example and graphic organizer are...

This second lesson in a larger unit is perfect for the beginning of the year because it explicitly teaches 3rd graders how to use close reading skills by identifying unfamiliar words, figuring out the gist, and defining important...

Third graders read excepts from the story, Thank You, Mr. Falker in order to gain practice in understanding an unfamiliar story by focusing on the details. They use a worksheet, embedded in the plan, which directs them to certain...

For this ninth lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit, close reading skills are used independently to find the gist of the story That Book Woman. Rereading for important details is the targeted skill to unlock a deeper...

"The Dinner Party" is the anchor text in a lesson designed to encourage writers to use sensory details in their stories. After brainstorming descriptive words and phrases for the five senses, class members read Mona Gardner's...

Reading, writing, and rings! A lesson from NASA combines space science with authentic reading and writing tasks. Included in this lesson are pre-reading activities, four mini informational booklets on Saturn, a structured...

Shell Silverstein’s “Sick” provides an opportunity for kids to demonstrate their understanding of syllables and phonemes. The class creates a list of descriptive words used in the poem that have more than one syllable, and brainstorm how...

Words can be a powerful tool in the hands of a poet. Class members examine a poem written by Ross Gay in response to the death of Eric Garner and a news report of the same death. They then read an article about the death of Tamir Rice...

Are you teaching a high school language arts class and stumped for writing topics? Five pages of writing prompts for all kinds of writing should help you out. Many of these prompts refer to texts that are not included in this resource,...

Use picture cues as a tool in order to create meaning along with text. With a wordless comic, young illustrators discuss the main idea and character traits, and independently write a summary for a page of a wordless comic. This strategy...

Making predictions is an excellent reading strategy. Work on building this into your pupils' toolkit of strategies by trying out the process outlined here for reading the very beginning of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The...

Identify the main idea and the supporting details of a story in a literacy resource from Discovery Education. Complete with procedures, vocabulary, and assessment activities, this is a great way for pupils to practice their outlining...

Poems For Two Voices are a great resource in any language arts classroom, whether you are studying poetry or not. Focusing on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this lesson prompts young authors to write a Poem For Two...

Was Nat Turner a hero or a violent criminal? Using primary sources and images that discuss the rebellion of enslaved people he led in antebellum Virginia, scholars consider the question. Then, they create memorials to Turner and...

Young writers read excerpts from Gary Paulsen's memoir to identify figurative and literal language that contain sensory details. They determine which selections are examples of sensory language and fi the language is used literally or...