The success of any lesson based on a complex text relies heavily on what instructors do before beginning the reading. Before reading Othello, scholars engage in a series of pre-reading activities, including completing an anticipation...

As your class reaches the end of the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, the seventh lesson in this literary unit helps third graders transition from reading narrative to expository writing. Scholars develop their note-taking skills...

As a summative assessment for this unit on colonial trade, fourth graders listen to and read informational texts in order to demonstrate their ability to take notes, write summaries, and draw connections. Young scholars first listen as...

Guide your class through reading various versions of The Three Little Pigs. Talk about the traditional story line and then discuss a different point of view: Maybe the wolf was just an innocent bystander! This lesson plan, which has...

In the tenth instructional activity of this unit, young scholars learn to categorize information as they continue researching their colonial trade. During guided practice, the teacher models how to read informational text slowly while...

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...

Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about...

Are anticipation guides effective? The first two pages of this lesson describe what an anticipation guide is and how to use it effectively. On the final page is the anticipation guide; use it to get your class talking about censorship...

Third graders practice the skills of identifying the main message in a story, describing the main character, and sorting the key details of a story into specific categories. The story they read is, The Boy Who Loved Words. Using a...

What do consumers need to know about overfishing before buying fish? Scholars consider the question as they prepare for their performance task, which is to create a consumer guide for people about purchasing fish responsibly. After...

Readers continue to learn how natural resources are important to Canada's economy. They read, annotate, and answer text-dependent questions about Natural Resources and the Canadian Economy. They then discuss key terms in the text.

The Great Fire by Jim Murphy provides the text for a study of the Chicago fire of 1871. The plan is designed as a close reading activity so that all learners have the same background information require for writing. Richly detailed, the...

Though Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle shocked the American public into a thorough examination of the meat-packing industry, the author was disappointed that his book's main argument—the exploitation of American immigrants—was not...

Introduce your class to Edgar Allan Poe with a series of mostly self-guided tasks and assignments. Class members follow the list of tasks, starting by watching a video with background information and ending with a compare-and-contrast...

Your learners will be tantalized by this inquiry-based, collaborative activity as they discover how to write an equation that represents the height of an ice cream cone. Given the scenario based on the poem, "Eighteen Flavors," and...

Let your learners be the judges for a series of case studies that focus on broadcast codes in Canada. In order to familiarize your class with the codes and guidelines that govern the broadcasting industry, in particular Canada's...

A thorough lesson plan takes your first grade class through Jane Yolen's beautiful Owl Moon. It crafts the unit with clear objectives, high-level guiding questions, cloze activities and sentence frames, and extension...

What is a haibun? With this interesting lesson, writers will experience the Japanese writing form haibun, identify elements important to Japanese writing styles, analyze a haibun, and compose their own. Different from the typical journal...

Family and friendship are two very important themes of the historical fiction novel The Orphan of Ellis Island by Elvira Woodruff. From video clips and writing prompts to reader's theater and family interviews, this resource...

Pupils engage in an activity where one partner reads directions while the other follows those directions to complete a math task (such as bisecting an angle). As a reflection, they examine products to see what information the best...

Scholars examine the strategy of making a story map or outline to identify the main elements of a story. They discuss the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a story, in an outline form. As a class they read a short story, answer the...

Students read books, learn about the letter s, and eat raisins all to learn about shadows. In this shadows lesson plan, students also go outside and look at shadows and sing songs about shadows.

Students complete pre reading, writing, during reading, and interdisciplinary activities for the book Ancient Rome. For this reading lesson plan, students complete journal entries, go over vocabulary, answer short answer questions, have...

Students are read "Danny the Dinosaur" and explore alternate endings. They answer questions about the story to answer as they go.