Help young readers learn to read and interpret complex text independently. Teach young children to ask interpretive questions and use the text itself to answer them. Use art, word play and drama to provide a deeper understanding of...

Are American young people prepared to become tomorrow's leaders in technological innovation, or does an obsession with being cool sidetrack essential skills? That is the question freshmen and sophomores must address in a performance...

Practice sounding out multi-syllable words with this scaffolded lesson. Learners decode words by segmenting them into phonemes and combining the sounds. Your lines are in bold here, but you can easily use this simply as an outline...

Sounding out individual phonemes and blending them to make a word is usually one of the first tasks mastered when learning to read. Make master decoders out of your learners, they sound out a series of simple two and three-letter cvc...

Follow the format of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with a journal-writing activity. Readers choose a character and examine the character's life and circumstances through brainstorming, research, and discussion before...

Write-on! Demonstrate a writing model and support learners as they write an informational essay on a water resource issue of your (or their) choosing. The lesson plan provides a well-scaffolded summative writing...

Once again, class groups examine two model paragraphs and, using the provided rubric, evaluate how effectively the writers use structural techniques to sequence events so that they build a specific tone. Individuals then use what they...

Walking in nature is the theme of a unit designed to support English language development lessons. Scholars look, write, speak, and move to explore topics such as camping, woodland animals, instruments,...

It's no secret that children can be very opinionated, but rather than fight against this natural tendency, embrace it with this primary grade writing project. After a shared reading of a children's book about...

An in-class reading of Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece Meets the Big O introduces class members to the journey motif that forms the basis of The Hobbit.

Family and Friends is the theme of a unit offering extra support lessons. Follow each lesson plan's teach, blend, guided practice or practice/apply routine to reinforce concepts such as clusters, responding to reading, drawing...

William Shakespeare penned some of the richest and most fascinating works of literature—or did he? Middle schoolers read three brief informative passages and conduct additional research to evaluate the claim that Shakespeare did not...

John Knowles' A Separate Peace provides readers with an opportunity to develop their close reading and analytical skills as they look for what Knowles feels are the factors that shape our identity.

This detailed presentation starts with a review of using key components to graph a line. It then quickly moves into new territory of taking these important parts and teasing them out of a word problem. Special care is...

Support your writers! Clear procedures and appropriate support make this a superb resource for elementary writing instruction. Ready your class to compose original descriptive paragraphs inspired by the episode in Roald Dahl's James and...

Writing a paragraph from details found directly in a text is the central focus of this thorough and explicit lesson plan. Using the stories Nasreen's Secret School and Rain School, third graders are lead step-by-step...

Thinking about introducing your middle schoolers to reading log journals? Try the approach suggested by this resource. After reading to the class an article or portion of a novel, demonstrate a Think Aloud and then model how to transform...

Readers of The Joy Luck Club, use a double-0entry journal to record and reflect on passages from Amy Tan's novel.

Sometimes it's helpful to read certain passages in a novel slowly and carefully, and to read other parts more quickly to move the plot along. Learners tread carefully through Chapter 20 of Lois Lowry's The Giver, noting which...

It's time to proof read! Pupils read and analyze proof paragraphs from a model essay. They then practice writing their own proof paragraphs to express an opinion about offshore oil drilling. 

Does pride really goeth before the fall, or can it be essential to one's development? Second graders read two of Aesop's fables that refer to pride in their morals, and write a short essay about whether pride is good or bad, based on...

Lesson ten in this unit for the book Bullfrogs at Magnolia Circle, prepares third graders to begin writing an informational paragraph about the adaptations of bullfrogs. First, young writers work either independently or in pairs to...

Imagine using narrative essays to encourage change. This multi-week unit plan does just that. After reading a series of articles from Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, class members examine the...