Expose your class to Waiting for the Biblioburro, narrative nonfiction that will act as the bridge between ficiton and informational texts to come. Class members do a close reading of the text, looking at excerpts instead of the whole...

While this is considered optional within the unit it is designed for, pupils would benefit from the listed activities. Working on writing and revising a paragraph about librarians who travel to isolated areas, class members can add some...

Where the Read Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls is rich with themes relating to love and family. Help your class to understand these themes with the series of reading activities included in this unit outline. Readers can keep a journal to...

As the saying goes, you are what you eat. A useful set of lesson plans encourage young readers to take a second look at their eating habits. Pre- and post-reading questions bring in reflective writing and discussion while extension...

Frogs are the theme of a lesson plan that challenges scholars to examine photographs, read informational texts, then ask and answer questions. Scholars work collaboratelively as they rotate through stations, discuss their observations,...

A fun and delicious lesson can help your kids learn about plural nouns and story sequencing. After reading The Magic Apple by Rob Cleveland, kids match pictures to story segments and add s to nouns to make them plural....

The stated goal of this unit is to use poetry to "improve the emotional health of young people." Budding poets read and then supply their own lines for poems that deal with alienation, loneliness, and rejection.

Zoot suits, the Lindy hop, and conks. Readers carefully examine the rhetoric of chapter 4 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, analyze the effectiveness of using slang to develop a narrative, and consider how they might incorporate Haley's...

Readers examine the rhetorical devices Haley uses in chapter 8 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, paying particular attention to the diction and syntax and how these choices reveal changes in Malcolm X's point of view.

Class members return to the discussion of The Autobiography of Malcolm X using the questions they developed and their annotated notes of the events in chapter 17.

As an end-of-unit assessment, class members craft a formal, multi-paragraph essay identifying a similar idea found in Rainer Maria Rilke's collection, Letters to a Young Poet, and David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. Writers state and use...

Readers of "The Palace Thief" continue examining Ethan Canin’s short story and consider how the narrator's actions develop the central idea of how one's expectations and the expectations of others influence behavior.

Is history "little more than a relic," as one of the characters in "The Palace Thief" contends? Has Hundert's love of antiquity kept him from changing with the times? Readers consider how the author uses these conflicting views to...

After viewing Baz Luhrmann’s depiction of Romeo and Juliet's marriage, the class listens to a recording of Act 3, Scene 1, lines 59–110. Then, groups consider how Shakespeare develops Romeo’s character through his interactions with...

Building on a previous lesson plan, readers continue using context clues to learn new vocabulary. Additionally, they continue working on their Gathering Evidence graphic organizers, making connections between an informational text and A...

Want to know more about China's energy resources? Scholars will explore renewable resources implemented in China's energy plan. The will discover various types of renewable energy sources and discover how China is taping into these types...

Letter by letter, sound by sound, monitor the growth of your emergent readers with these assessment templates. Adaptable to the needs of individual students, these one-on-one assessments focus on children's ability to identify...

Support all young learners on their journey to literacy with this five-lesson reading intervention unit. Following a clearly outlined format, each lesson first engages children in practicing their phonemic awareness and phonics...

Follow Alice as she travels through Wonderland with a set of lessons based on the first chapter of the book. Learners discuss key moments and ideas from chapter 1 before answering a series of comprehension questions about what they have...

Whether you are planning on using Of Mice and Men for whole-class reading or as a selection for literature circles; whether you are new to John Steinbeck's novel, or it has long been a part of your curriculum, you...

The works of Jacqueline Woodson introduce readers to diverse characters and themes. A guide covers many of the author's best-known books such as Brown Girl Dreaming and Locomotion. Dive & Discuss and Explore & Extend activities...

Chapter 3 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X discusses how central ideas are developed in a narrative. Readers use the provided annotated bookmark to record evidence of ideas such as racial identity, integration/separation, and systemic...

Using questions they developed, class groups discuss Chapter 2 of Malcolm X's autobiography, focusing on the individuals and events Malcolm X feels contributed to his character development.