Scholars reflect upon their reading strengths and challenges to create personal reading goals. Participants use goal-setting verbiage in an accordion-style graphic organizer, a first step in writing a letter that details their reading...

Have fun creating rhymes! Your class will read the familiar nursery rhyme Three Little Kittens and list rhyming words. They then use the story as a template to develop their own rhymes.

The Magic Pot by Patricia Coombs is the theme of this multidisciplinary lesson plan. Early readers first take part in a read aloud and grand conversation about the story's details. Then, they get to work practicing their skills in...

Cesar Chavez, the United Farmworker's Movement, and the struggle for Chicano Civil Rights are the focus of a Day of Service and Learning curriculum guide that asks participants to investigate the conditions, events, and...

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 138 is the focus of a reading comprehension exercise that asks readers to answer to five questions using evidence drawn from the poem to support their response.

Jo's decision to sell her hair to bringing her wounded father home is a pivotal and poignant scene from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Class members read the excerpt and answer four questions about the details, vocabulary, and plot...

Jo March is all grown up in Louisa May Alcott's Little Men, and a new generation of children is benefitting from her tutelage. Young learners read a passage from the novel before answering four comprehension questions about plot details...

Have you always wanted to try Literature Circles in your ELD class, but couldn't find a good way to start? This lesson is made for you, your middle-school readers and ideally, your SMARTboard (though the lesson could function without...

There is nothing more frustrating than discussing theme in literature, and now the Common Core requires that your learners determine two or more, and discuss the development of it throughout the text. This is crazy, but manageable with...

Learners practice their reading comprehension by analyzing and discussing books with their classmates. They record their responses to comprehension, evaluation, and interpretation questions provided on a worksheet that is referenced but...

The story Hansel and Gretel is used to build new vocabulary in context. The class reads the story together. They then focus on 2-3 new vocabulary words, using the context of the story to help define them. This lesson is fully scripted...

Expand on eager bookworms' independent reading by engaging them to define various genres of literature. Readers collaborate and use technology to find what goes into their assigned or previously read genres. Time is given for independent...

To examine the “New English” Chinua Achebe uses in Things Fall Apart, readers complete a series of worksheets that ask them to examine similes, proverbs, and African folktales contained in the novel. Individuals explain the meaning...

Nathaniel Hawthorne as a humorist? Really? The three lessons in this series focus on the the storytelling style, conventions, and literary techniques employed by Hawthorne, George Washington Harris, and Mark Twain. 

It's no myth: this packet on Greek mythology is an excellent addition to your social studies curriculum. With writing activities, such as short answer responses and biopoems, and reading activities, which include creation stories and...

How can something be true even if it didn't happen? Invite your classes to investigate the truths found in the world of magical realism as they analyze short stories, poems, informational texts, video, and art from this genre.

Few topics engage young mathematicians as much as learning about money. Through a series of shared readings and hands-on activities, children explore the US currency system, learning how to count money and calculate change as they create...

Encourage readers to determine if Hamlet's madness is actually divinest sense. Class members analyze the words of the play before studying related texts, including T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," scenes from...

Fourth graders are taken to the media center to review various genre of literature, apply information and concepts to evaluate examples and locate specific genre, and search for materials for reading enjoyment. A good instructional...

Young scholars identify genres of literature. In this literature instructional activity, students read definitions of the various genres. Young scholars choose books and list clues in the texts that help them identify the appropriate genre.

Ninth graders identify current knowledge of dramatic literature and develop a schema for discussing an performing dramatic literature.

Ninth graders engage in the reading of literature in order to focus upon some of the basic literary elements while examining "The Catcher In The Rye". They use the experience of reading and literary analysis in order to help develop an...

Fifth graders explore sequential dramatization through children's literature. In this drama lesson, 5th graders act out and record scenes using digital and video cameras.  Students create a digital poster using pictures from their...