A key reading comprehension skill is the ability to summarize. Here's a worksheet that not only explains how to summarize, but also explains why summarizing is important.

Nothing makes junior high and high school teachers more frustrated than plagiarism. Instruct young writers about copyright laws and the correct ways to paragraph information without copying the exact words. A set of secondary-level...

When it comes to teaching writing, it helps to start small. A supplementary guide to A Writer's Guide to Powerful Paragraphs provides suggested activities to help writers craft a variety of paragraphs. Each assignment covers a...

Considering a college search project? After picking a possible career choice, and determining if that career needs a technical college or university education, individuals examine a wide variety of sources and select three schools...

Although this lesson is based on “Final Word,” Craig Wilson’s USA Today column, the strategies could be adapted to any local columnist. After reading three articles independently, groups share observations about content and style used by...

Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...

Suggested to accompany a class reading of The Great Gatsby, this plan begins with a discussion emphasizing the reputation of Vanderbilt University. Then, after the class has a working knowledge of the wealth associated with the school,...

Japanese tea gatherings are the inspiration for a great lesson. Learners are provided with an image of a tea caddy made for thick tea and asked to describe what they notice and what that might mean. This leads into a larger lesson about...

Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...

When your pupils read an account of an event, are they conscious of the fact that this particular account might focus on certain details, while ignoring others? Open their eyes to bias and varying interpretation of facts with the...

Planning on using Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol this year? Then give yourself a gift and download this colorful guide thats packed with goodies. Kids, as well as the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future are sure to...

After examining winning entries to the Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku Competition, young poets try their hand at this fixed form.

The Grapes of Wrath may be the most famous novel set during the Dust Bowl, but what other stories cover the same time? The unit focuses on the Karen Hesse novel Out of the Dust. Learners keep a timeline of the Dust Bowl, maintain a...

It's time to party like it's 1899! Incorporate a research-based celebration of the Victorian Era into your unit on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. After learners read the novella or view a production of the play, they craft a...

To demonstrate their ability to comprehend complex text, individuals analyze the details, syntax, and diction John Steinbeck uses in a passage from The Grapes of Wrath to reveal the develop and evolution of Mae's character.

To demonstrate their ability to comprehend complex text, ninth graders are asked to craft an essay in which they use evidence drawn from "Letter From Birmingham Jail" to analyze how Martin Luther King, Jr. uses rhetorical devices...

As a reading comprehension assessment, ninth graders are asked to use evidence drawn from The Glass Menagerie to support an analysis of how Tennessee Williams uses specific lines to develop Amanda's character as well as her...

Elie Wiesel's "Hope, Despair and Memory" provides ninth graders an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to analyze complex text. Individuals craft an essay that draws evidence from the text of the speech to show how Wiesel develops...

Alice Walker's poem "Women" provides ninth graders the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to identify how a writer's choice of syntax and diction contribute to the development of the theme of the work.

An effective lesson plan truly can make all the difference. Seventh graders read, analyze, and annotate Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" before writing an essay about what they believe to be the theme of the iconic poem.

Living in someone's shadow would be difficult for anyone, including one of the most talented artists of the modern age. Middle schoolers read an excerpt from Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan...

Conduct a lesson that leads into a writing assessment. After reading an excerpt from From Seed to Pumpkin, first graders demonstrate their interpretation of sections of the passage by sketching the details from each part.

Good books are accessible through a variety of literary lenses. To consider how the same story can be seen in different lights, groups develop a storyboard for a movie teaser that would focus on one of six concepts found in Suzanne...

Tone and Mood are not synonymous! Introduce young readers to these literary devices with a series of exercises that not only point out the significant differences between the terms but also shows them how to identify both the tone and...