Curated OER
Reading Logs - Practice Creates Efficiency
Pupils examine how to identify the main idea and supporting details of a reading selection. They keep a reading log of what they read each day, reviewing their reading selections with the class.
Curated OER
Goodnight Goon
Learners identify fictional story elements. In this reading comprehension lesson, students read the book Goodnight Goon, which is a parody of Goodnight Moon, and discuss the story elements. Learners use an included worksheet to record...
Curated OER
What's the Point?
Learners identify the components of a political cartoon and formulate the main ideas.
Curated OER
Making Connections
Young scholars identify the main ideas in a passage from literature, and in a painting, and justify their conclusions using logic and language arts skills.
Curated OER
Counteracting Media Stereotyping
Discuss media stereotypes with your emerging consumers. They view a television program to identify gender bias. After discussing the clip as a class, each learner writes a story showing more equitable roles. Or consider having them...
Curated OER
Censorship In Fahrenheit 451
Tenth graders explore the concept of censorship through a reading of Fahrenheit 451. They discuss the issue and its relation to contemporary society. Students work in groups to debate the pros and cons of censorship in our society.
Curated OER
The Kite Runner: Anticipation Guide
Introduce Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner with an anticipation guide that asks class members to consider their opinions on a series of statements related to themes presented in the novel.
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to Literacy Criticism
As learners continue to examine a short story of their choice, they take some time to look at analysis completed by others on the same story. In the eleventh lesson in a series of fourteen, pupils explore various sites for literary...
Curated OER
Journal Writing in American Studies
Young scholars write their thoughts about political cartoons, photographs, and articles in their journal and then discuss them in class.
Curated OER
Beginning to Read
Students explore various books read by their classmates outside of school. After reading books of their choice, the class creates a bulletin board summarizing their main ideas of the book and their opinion of the book using Flat Stanley.
Curated OER
Read Me a Story and Check My Listening
Students develop listening and reading skills with the oral reading of a story. The students demonstrate good listening skills using appropriate body language and answering assessment questions. They discuss the story looking for main...
Curated OER
The Pumpkin Patch - A Venture in Agritourism
After reading an article about how agritourism is helping boost the financial stability of local farms, middle schoolers answer comprehension questions. This is a case-study of Canadian pumpkin producers. It could be useful as a...
Curated OER
Directed and Undirected Free-writing: An Activity in Brainstorming
Analyze the free-writing method of brainstorming to explore how to write an essay. Middle schoolers plan their writing from the beginning after reading two samples of free-writing, then creating their own. The lesson includes extension...
Curated OER
Main Ideas
In this main ideas activity, learners read the groups of word sin each example and give each group a main idea. Students complete 8 examples.
Curated OER
Comprehension: Create a Summary from a Narrative Text
If your class can sequence events in a story, are pretty good at retell, and can identify the main point, they are probably ready for reading comprehension through summarizing. This lesson provides a teacher's script that facilitates...
Curated OER
What a Character!
Guide your readers to explore character traits. As a class, discuss and record the traits of a commonly-known fairy tale character. Then do the same with the main character in the class novel. Finally, have learners use magazines...
Curated OER
What Makes a Novel a Novel?
They always say to write what you know. This approach is used to get middle schoolers prepared to write novels of their own. Using a favorite book as a model, potential novelists respond to prompts that ask about characters, plot, main...
Curated OER
Dramatic Outlines
Students write about main characters. For this dramatic writing lesson, students brainstorm character ideas. Students create actions and give the character a voice. Students act out the scene in groups and create a final draft.
Reading Through History
Anti-Federalist Paper No. 47
The path to a more perfect union was rockier than most history books would lead you to believe. Young historians read “Antifederalist No. 47,” written by James Madison (under the pen name “Centinel”), which sharply criticizes the...
Curated OER
Cloze Instruction And Herringbone Technique
Young scholars sort out important information and create a visual framework for reviewing in the future. They organize a large quantity of information thus helping with learning and remembering details, cause and effect, comparison...
Brigham Young University
Flipped: Problematic Situations
An activity based on the young adult novel Flipped, groups work to make the same difficult decision a character in the novel faces. Each group is given the same scenario about caring for a mentally disabled brother personally...
Curated OER
Lesson Ideas to Enrich Student Inquiry into the Holocaust
Students inquire about the Holocaust. In this Holocaust lesson, students read books and discuss their thoughts. Students also collect current event articles from newspapers. Students investigate ghettos, Pearl Harbor and Navajo Code...
Curated OER
Grade 5 Develop a Paragraph
In this paragraph learning exercise, students cut out the 5 sentence strips that will form the opening paragraph of a speech on cooking. Students arrange the sentences in order: topic sentence, details and concluding sentence.
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Common Core 1st Grade Workbook
You've found the first grade Common Core jackpot! English Language Arts and Math Common Core standards are addressed in a 74-page packet complete with standard text printables, activities, cut-outs for the classroom, and worksheets.