Read Works
Read Works: A New Home
[Free Registration/Login Required] A historical fiction text about a girl named Patience who is traveling with her family to clear land and make a new home. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in understanding...
![De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Potawatomi Prairie [Pdf] Unit Plan](https://static.lp.lexp.cloud/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Potawatomi Prairie [Pdf] Unit Plan")
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Potawatomi Prairie [Pdf]
"Potawatomi Prairie" is a one page, historical fiction, reading passage about the Potawatomi tribe and what their life may have been like during the different seasons of the year. It is followed by questions which require students to...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
Liesel Meminger is only nine years old when she is taken to live with a foster family, the Hubermanns, on Himmel Street in Molching, Germany, in the late 1930s. She arrives with few possessions, but among them is The Grave Digger's...
CommonLit
Common Lit: "Columbus and the Egg" by Barbara Radner
This is a historical fiction story about Columbus, the explorer who came to the Americas from Spain in 1492. This is a story about what might have happened long ago when he was back in Spain. A specific purpose for reading and vocabulary...
TES Global
Tes: Social and Historical Context: Witch Child
[Free Registration/Login Required] The article will provide schema for students who are reading Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, or who are reading Celia Rees' Witch Child.
Indiana University
Wright American Fiction Collection: Mark Twain
The full texts to Twain's lesser-known works can be accessed from this site such as "Celebrated Jumping Frog" and "The Innocents Abroad." Read facsimiles of the original books or plain text versions.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Lexington [Pdf]
"Lexington" is a one page, historical fiction, reading passage about soldiers fighting in the Revolutionary War. A soldier describes the feeling of being an American. It is followed by constructed-response questions which require...
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts: The Big Read: Alvarez: Time of the Butterflies
Guide to Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies provides historical context, author biography, questions, and a collection of resources for teachers, including a ten-day lesson schedule, project ideas, and essay topics. A radio...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Prairie Farmers [Pdf]
"Prairie Farmers" is a one page, historical fiction, journal describing life for farmers in the prairie throughout the year. It shows the difficulties including bad weather and fires. It requires students to closely read the journal and...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Columbus and the Egg [Pdf]
"Columbus and the Egg" is a one page, historical fictional passage about Christopher Columbus's return to Spain after discovering America. Some people said anyone could sail the seas. Columbus used an egg to make a point. It is followed...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: His First Dollar [Pdf]
"His First Dollar" is a one-page, historical fiction passage in which Abraham Lincoln tells his Secretary of State Seward when and how he had earned his first dollar. It is followed by constructed-response questions which require...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Columbus and the Egg [Pdf]
"Columbus and the Egg" is a one page, historical fictional passage about Christopher Columbus's return to Spain after discovering America. Some people said anyone could sail the seas. Columbus used an egg to make a point. It is followed...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Black Storm Comin' by Diane Lee Wilson
WANTED: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders. Willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: In My Hands by Irene Gut Opdyke
In the fall of 1939 the Nazis invaded Irene Gut's beloved Poland, ending her training as a nurse and thrusting the sixteen-year-old Catholic girl into a world of degradation that somehow gave her the strength to accomplish what amounted...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
Young Misha Pilsudski lives on the streets of Warsaw, Poland and struggles with his identity. When he enters the Jewish ghetto and sees firsthand the evil acts of Hitler's Nazi soldiers, he realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: The Sacrifice by Kathleen Benner Duble
In the year 1692, life changes forever for ten-year-old Abigail Faulkner and her family. In Salem, Massachusetts, witches have been found, and widespread fear and panic reign mere miles from Abigail's home of Andover. When two girls are...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
As the Revolutionary War begins, 13-year-old Isabel wages her own fight for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, Isabel and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Hello, America by Livia Bitton Jackson
Eighteen-year-old Elli has a number tattooed onto her arm. It is an indelible remnant of a terrifying past a life lived, for many years, in the death camp of Auschwitz. When Elli arrives in New York City, she can not speak English, and...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Set in 1943 when the Nazis occupied Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen is asked to carry out a heroic deed and aid her uncle in his efforts to smuggle Danish Jews across the sea to Sweden, where they will be safe. She has already...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Betsy and the Emperor by Staton Rabon
Fourteen-year-old English girl Betsy Balcombe and her family have an unusual houseguest: Napoleon Bonaparte, former emperor of France and the most feared man on earth. Once lord and master to eighty-two million souls, now, in 1815,...
Reading Is Fundamental
Reading Is Fundamental: Meet the Authors and Illustrators: Pam Munoz Ryan
This site includes an interview with Pam Munoz Ryan, a famous author of many children's picture books and historical fiction books. Read reviews of some of Pam Munoz Ryan's books by chidren.
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: A Troubled Peace by l.m. Elliott
A Troubled Peace, the sequel to L. M. Elliott's award-winning Under a War-Torn Sky, chronicles nineteen-year-old U.S. Air Force pilot Henry Forester's adventures in France from March through July 1945. Although Henry safely returned from...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata
Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class....
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Bright Morning
Use this lesson to delve into the exploration of character development in fiction through the novel "Bright Morning," by Scott O'Dell.