After reading The Mitten by Jan Brett, scholars discuss the author's purpose. Small groups compare and contrast a book written to entertain and a book to inform, then create a T-Chart detailing the characteristics of...

Demonstrate how to engage in a polite and professional conversation with this banking and interfacing lesson. Focusing on explanatory and informaitonal texts, middle schoolers write sentences using banking and finance terminologies....

That's Amazing! is the theme of an English language development unit created by Houghton Mifflin. Following a speak, look, move, and listen routine, scholars delve into topics; seasons, weather, animals, landforms, telling...

This New York Times "Learning Network" activity poses 11 questions on an article and video about commercial branding and marketing on college campuses. The related article, "On the Market: Thinking Critically About Advertising", is...

Discuss the difference between legitimate debate on a political issue and arguments that are based on hate through a science-fiction scenario that shows how a controversial issue can be discussed in both ways. Then learn how purveyors of...

Word problems, telling time, and reading charts all come together on this page. After reviewing a table of different travel times for a bus, a tram, a taxi, and a trolley, third graders solve word problems about arrival times and stop...

One of three lessons on gender stereotype, this resource from the Media Awareness Network discusses the violence that is inflicted on men and women as they try to live up to the stereotypes of their gender. The section on women focuses...

Scholars warm-up their map skills with a discussion using location words to describe familiar places. An engaging video informs class members about latitude and longitude. Three leveled activities extend the learning experience for...

High schoolers examine the First Great Awakening and how it affected religious belief in colonial America. They read and analyze primary source documents, explore various websites, and write a five-paragraph essay examining the beliefs...

Young scholars examine how religion affected arguments justifying American independence. They read and analyze primary source documents, and write an essay analyzing how Americans used religious arguments to justify revolution against a...

This New York Times "Learning Network" exercise provides 10 questions that apply to an article about Mark Zuckerberg. It poses key journalistic questions like, who, what, why, where, how, and when. This resource provides a nice, short...

Young lawyers put Goldilocks on trial as they develop an understanding of the legal system in the final lesson of this five-part series. After learning about key terms relating to litigation, students are assigned roles and reading...

Looking to increase reading comprehension? Teach this lesson plan, which is flexible enough to use with either informational texts or with literature. Teams of boys and girls work together to answer a comprehension question after...

A quintessential resource for teaching an elementary unit on the first Thanksgiving addresses a variety of skills, including informational reading, critical thinking, comparing and contrasting facts, technology tools, and historical...

Students learn why we say the Pledge of Allegiance through shared reading. In this shared reading lesson plan, students are shown the Pledge of Allegiance in 3 different forms. While they are exploring the pledge, the teacher explains...

Young readers explore informational texts as they read a text entitled Giant Pandas by Gail Gibbons. The teacher will begin by explaining that one characteristic of informational texts is that they teach the reader new information...

Early settlers in the American Midwest experienced constant struggle. This reading passage describes for young learners the hardships of homesteaders as they journeyed west and sought to start a new life. When finished, students identify...

Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori presents a vivid picture of Japanese culture and history. As kids read through the third chapter, they find novel-specific vocabulary to enhance their understanding and use context clues to...

As a practice writing test, fourth graders use the West of the West's documentary Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island and two print resources as source materials for an informative article that identifies information that is...

Although this is part of a series, lesson plan nine has your class take a break from their close study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) text to read the firsthand account “Teaching Nepalis to Read, Plant, and...

Lesson 10 in a series of human rights lessons focuses on the skills of finding evidence and summarizing. Your young readers work to compare the two texts they have read in this unit: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

Your kids can identify the plot sequence of a short story, but what about an informational article? Have them examine the chronological order of events in informational texts with a lesson on the sequence of events. 

This writing pre-assessment has minimal instruction but maximum support and encouragement. It begins with a review of the book, Rain School, through a think-pair-share and small group discussion. The discussion...

As part of a group of lessons, your class will return to the primary text for this unit, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Key vocabulary as well as close reading strategies continue to be the focus skills; however, this lesson...