There is a reason why an Oscar is given each year for the Best Adaptation Screenplay. Adaptations are the focus of an exercise that asks class members to compare a work of literature with a least one adaptation of the work into a...

Whether it's dark, delightful, or somber, set the mood with William Golding's Lord of the Flies. High-schoolers practice descriptive writing by creating the appropriate mood for an original scene, starring one of the book's main...

“It was a miracle.” Basil Heatter’s “The Long Night of the Little Boats,” which details the miraculous rescue of the British army from the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, is featured in a series of exercises that ask class members to read,...

What do consumers need to know about overfishing before buying fish? Scholars consider the question as they prepare for their performance task, which is to create a consumer guide for people about purchasing fish responsibly. After...

What does is take to be a role model? Through grand conversation, and the use of books and a graphic organizer, scholars find out and apply the requirements to identify a role model within their family. They then journey through the...

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,...

Take an in-depth look at a passage from Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie. Included here is the reading passage as well as a step-by-step procedure for reading the text, a set of text-dependent questions, and a final writing...

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...

Surprise! is the theme of this series of ESL lessons. Cover an array of topics such as where we live, different times of day, shapes, the city and the country, what we do for fun, jobs, and games, all while practicing how...

As part of their study of the restoration projects on Santa Cruz Island, class members demonstrate their understanding of the connections among plant life, animals, and the actions of humans by crafting a model that reveals these...

Readers of Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry are introduced to the Question Answer Response Strategy (QAR) as a way to increase their engagement in and comprehension of the novel.

Readers practice gathering textual evidence to support their understanding of character point of view in A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. Working with partners, they complete a Gathering Evidence graphic organizer and engage in...

Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage provides the text for a reading comprehension activity that asks class members to develop questions based on the novel.

Third graders develop their reading superpowers in a lesson plan on fluency. After first listening to an audio recording or teacher read aloud, the class works together identifying criteria for fluent reading, focusing on phrasing, rate,...

Third graders continue to develop their reading fluency in preparation for their assessment in the tenth lesson plan of this unit. Young readers are provided with a short passage on Helen Keller, which they use while working in pairs...

Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address provides the text for a series of close reading exercises that model for instructors how carefully crafted guiding questions can help readers think critically about what they read, thus developing...

To conclude their study of Out of the Dust, the 1998 Newbery Medal winning verse novel, individuals craft a narrative essay based on one of the themes in Karen Hesse's novel.

First graders identify heroes by researching their family history. In this personal heritage lesson, 1st graders define the term "hero" and the characteristics that represent it. Students research family resources and family trees in...

Everyone wants to be part of a royal family. Let your pupils experience the privilege of royalty by rewriting the story The Frog Prince from the point of view of the princess. While the story line remains the same, perspective is bound...

Students complete the Frayer Model. In this literature lesson, students review the concept of theme in literature. Students identify major themes in books they've read. Students learn the attributes of the Frayer Model and then complete...

What do Jeep advertisements and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have in common? They both employ the art of the extended metaphor! Using the Six-Trait Writing model, learners begin to work on their own extended metaphors. Development...

There's no set length for a good paragraph, but the short block of text should contain key components. A handout on paragraphs, the 12th in a series of 24, outlines a five-step process for paragraph development. Additionally, the handout...

Readers are asked to use the provided graphic organizer to list the main idea and supporting ideas in a passage from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Readers analyze an excerpt from Kate DiCamillo's novel Because of Winn-Dixie. They read silently, and then hear it read aloud. Definitions for underlined vocabulary words are in the margin, and other potentially difficult words...