The focus of the day's instructional activity is methods for creating a formal style and objective tone in an argument essay. After examining models, pairs engage in peer review of their essay drafts and continue to revise while...

As writers continue to revise their argument essays, the focus shifts to editing grammatical conventions, parallel structure, and varying syntax to add interest. After examining model sentences that demonstrate sentence variety, writers...

Trading in Colonial America is the focus of a lesson plan that boosts reading skills. As a class, scholars examine the informational text for crucial details, use their newfound knowledge to share information with their peers, and write...

Using an informative resource, pupils discover how to write research questions that are focused, answerable, and relevant. Scholars evaluate resources about the industrial food chain from Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and then...

Focusing on the consequences of the hunter-gatherer food chain that Michael Pollan discusses in The Omnivore's Dilemma, teams work together to create hunter-gatherer food chain consequences charts. Next, scholars view other groups'...

Learners revisit Plantation Life to focus on Douglass's purpose and choices he made for writing the text. They complete text-dependent questions, an analysis note catcher, and finalize their thoughts by sharing out with the class.

What do you think? Readers focus on pages 9-10 of The Most Beautiful Roof in the World to form opinions about the difficulty of researching the rainforest canopy. They begin by discussing the skills required to be a scientist and...

". . .the chickens have come home to roost." Chapter 16 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the focus of this lesson plan. Readers use their worksheets to record evidence of character development and Haley's stylistic choices that...

Focusing on a specific inquiry and area of investigation, ninth graders continue their research projects and portfolios based on Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and their questions. The activity guides readers through the...

Ninth graders hone their research questions in a activity focusing on accurate search engine techniques. Continuing a unit on inquiry-based learning based on Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation, the activity guides learners through...

How do writers create a specific tone in their text? As class members continue their study of Sugar Changed the World, they focus on the words and phrases that Aronson and Budhos use to create that tone in their descriptions of arduous...

In a close reading of "The Overseer" chapter from Sugar Changed the World, groups focus on the words Aronson and Budhos use to contrast the lifestyles of enslaved people and their enslavers. The whole class then engages in an...

The second instructional activity in a unit about how writers develop their central ideas and use evidence to support their arguments focuses on the role that scholars at Jundi Shapur, "The World's First True University," played in the...

Water, water everywhere. Readers revisit paragraphs six through nine in the article "Water is Life" to answer text-dependent questions. They then pair up to reread the article focusing on its structure and record their thoughts on...

Provide an overview of setting in a narrative. Learners discuss story elements, focusing on setting. Then, they set the scene for an imaginary world using their five senses. This is a great way to help your class better understand this...

For many emerging writers, essays are completed step-by-step. With the help of this instructional activity, learners will narrow down a topic, develop a thesis statement, develop a preliminary outline, conduct Internet research, and...