Although the activity is designed for Gary Paulsen’s Canyons, these procedures could be used with any novel or vocabulary study. Readers select an unfamiliar word, record the sentence and chapter where the term is found, write two...

Take an in-depth look into the vocabulary from the novel, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. With a list of words to choose from, scholars discover the definition, origin, stories associated with...

Is Yuki a selfish character? Analyze her motivation and behavior during a unit on Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori. Readers fill out two sides of a graphic organizer with reasons why or why not she is selfish, and then come up with...

Maus is the text for a postreading activity that has class members using a cubing strategy to analyze, in depth, topics (racism, past and present, forgetting/remembering the Holocaust, representing the Holocaust) associated with Art...

Students form cooperative groups to read, discuss, and respond to a novel. They select a novel from offered choices or by criteria given by teacher and complete a culminating project on the novel from such choices as: creating a...

Students read a short novel while filling in a graphic organizer for problem and solution.  In this sociology lesson, students use a prior knowledge and relate the text to theirselves and to think about their own...

Walk your pupils through the beginning of My Antonia by Willa Cather with a read-aloud-style activity. The goal is to make predictions and back them up with textual evidence.

Making predictions is an excellent reading strategy. Work on building this into your pupils' toolkit of strategies by trying out the process outlined here for reading the very beginning of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The...

Let's have a look at something different. Scholars take a look at the text Investigating the Scientific Method with Max Axiom Super Scientist and discuss how the structure, graphics, and images appear different than previous works...

An interesting activity takes pupils on a trip through the carbon cycle. A reading passage allows scholars to take notes and make choices about what happens to the carbon on its journey. This third activity in a series of 21...

Class members create literary mandalas for two characters from Maus, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about his father’s experiences with the Holocaust. After finding quotes that reveal three good traits and three bad traits of each...

Sharpen those pencils; it's time to write! Scholars begin writing the first body paragraph of their literary analysis essays. Additionally, pupils use graphic organizers to analyze a character's point of view from Laurence Yep's...

Body paragraphs are the building blocks of every essay. Pupils view and discuss a model essay using a rubric to evaluate one of its supporting paragraphs. Next, scholars use what they've learned to continue drafting their own literary...

Teamwork makes the dream work. Pupils participate in a peer critique process, using forms to offer constructive advice about each other's storyboards. Next, scholars revise their storyboards based on the feedback, and then share their...

Support your learners as they work on writing paragraphs by providing graphic organizers, outlines, and frames. Sift through this packet to find the perfect organizers and templates to prepare pupils for writing. The resource...

How can an unfamiliar place help you learn something about yourself? Use a narrative writing prompt as you culminate your unit on Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic. Kids consider the ways that, like the main character from the...

Readers of Lord of the Flies consider the symbols of power William Golding uses in his dystopian novel and support their choice with evidence from the text.

Guide your class through a reading of the popular children's book, Frindle, with this comprehensive literature unit. Starting with a brief introduction to the guided reading process, the class goes on to read the story two chapters...

Immerse yourself in the world of giant bugs, rolling peaches, and brave little boys with an interdisciplinary unit on James and the Giant Peach. Young readers focus on the scientific themes of Roald Dahl's classic novel with bug hunts,...

Students research graphic novels. In this manga instructional activity, students work in small groups as the read graphic novels in literature circle format.

Students analyze graphical forms of Eudora Welty and interpret the shorts stories in the representations. For this graphical representations lesson, students analyze the short story genre in comic strips. Students then create their own...

Play a classroom version of the classic game show Jeopardy, to review and discuss the novel your class has been reading. Questions about plot and other story elements are written on cards and given point values. Divide the class into...

Readers of Wuthering Heights use the DRTA strategy to formulate predictions about the actions of characters in Bronte's novel.

The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...