Curated OER
Great Picture Books to Teach Social Studies for Grade K-3
Every class enjoys reading new books at the beginning of a unit. Use this resource to identify a variety of books for kindergarten to third grade that can be used to complement social studies standards. The books can kindle learners'...
Media Smarts
The Impact of Gender Role Stereotypes
One of three lessons on gender stereotype, this resource from the Media Awareness Network discusses the violence that is inflicted on men and women as they try to live up to the stereotypes of their gender. The section on women focuses...
University of Arizona
Found News Poems
Combine informational text and creative writing with one fun activity! Middle and high schoolers write found poems based on newspaper headlines that they find. The resource includes a thorough lesson plan and many links to articles that...
EngageNY
Analyzing Text Structure: “The Shakespeare Shakedown”
Pupils continue reading and discussing Simon Schama's article "The Shakespeare Shakedown." They work together to analyze the article's paragraph structure, completing a note-catcher worksheet.
Curated OER
We Can Eat Smarter
Students practice their reading skills. In this reading comprehension lesson, students read an article titled "We Can Eat Smarter," and then use the reading strategy described to note confusing passages and revisit them.
Curated OER
Lesson Plan for Nonfiction Comprehension: Posing Questions
Students practice writing questions on a selected topic. Students discuss questioning skills. They browse through books and magazines, review their textbooks, watch a film, or participate in a similar experience that will provide some...
Curated OER
Kumeyaay Indians
Useful for literary analysis, citing textual evidence, or summary skills, this lesson about the Kumeyaay Indians would be a good addition to your language arts class. Middle schoolers read novels and summarize the literature in their own...
Baruch College Writing Center
Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting Workshop
What's the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing? Show class members how to find the main ideas from informational text and condense it, restate it, or quote it directly with a series of educational activities based...
Louisiana Department of Education
Unit: Hamlet
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...
Curated OER
Short and Sweet Science
Readers learn how to summarize scientific text and evaluate the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in writing summaries. They select science-related articles you've pulled and collected from the New York Times and, with a partner,...
Curated OER
Comprehension-Note Taking Skills to Supprt Opinions and Panel Discussion
Fifth graders examine note taking skills in order to support opinions. In this language arts lesson, 5th graders read several newpaper articles and discuss a current issue. Students explore how to paraphrase so as not to commit plagiarism.
Curated OER
Organizing One’s Thoughts
High schoolers take a closer look at the organization of written pieces. In this writing skills lesson, students examine transitions, repetition, parallelism, and other organizational patterns in writing.
Curated OER
Introducing Biographies-Getting to Know You
Learners study biographies as a nonfiction genre while examining a variety of examples. Next, they access and complete an online tutorial about biographies. They choose one person that interests them to conduct further research using a...
Curated OER
Blending Fiction and Nonfiction to Improve Comprehension and Writing Skills
Learners explore a content area by reading both fiction and nonfiction texts on the topic. They do more research online about the topic. After comparing the texts, they create their own written original work, using both narrative and...
Curated OER
Analyzing Irony in Nonfiction
Young scholars examine the use of irony in non-fiction works. In this literature lesson, students read non-fiction war texts and explore the use of irony in the piece as they respond to discussion questions.
Curated OER
Literacy:Non-Fiction Stories
Third graders explore non-fiction stories. They follow along as the teacher reads a story. Students fill in words as the teacher reads to ensure they are following along. They discuss the text features found in the book and the features...
Curated OER
Flat Stanley Guided Reading
Second graders listen to their teacher read the book, "Flat Stanley". They relate the activities in the book to activities in their own life. They can also create their own pictures of Stanley.
Curated OER
Abigail as Letter Writer
The fourth instructional activity in the series of 16 asks researchers to analyze an exchange of letters between John and Abigail Adams for what they each valued in letter writing.
EngageNY
Main Ideas in Informational Text: Analyzing a Firsthand Human Rights Account
Although this is part of a series, lesson plan nine has your class take a break from their close study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) text to read the firsthand account “Teaching Nepalis to Read, Plant, and...
EngageNY
Main Ideas in Informational Text: Analyzing a Firsthand Human Rights Account for Connections to Specific Articles of the UDHR
Lesson 10 in a series of human rights lessons focuses on the skills of finding evidence and summarizing. Your young readers work to compare the two texts they have read in this unit: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
EngageNY
Vocabulary: Human Rights
Your class continues to explore the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition to learning about the background of this text, learners work on the skill of identifying and understanding key academic vocabulary....
Curated OER
Fiction and Nonfiction
Fourth graders differentiate between fiction and nonfiction using the books "Sarah Plain and Tall" and "A Day in the Prairie." They develop a list of information that they learn from the text, and create an information web. Students...
Curated OER
Reading And Responding: Lesson 4 Nonfiction/test-taking Strategies
Eighth graders participate in a teacher led activity that focuses on reading nonfiction and test taking strategies. They examine the use of context clues to improve their vocabulary and summarization skills. Also, they complete the...
Maryland Department of Education
A Raisin in the Sun and Dreams Deferred
To conclude a study of A Raisin in the Sun and to prepare for a visit to the Lewis Museum, class members analyze Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem." Learners then draw connections to characters in the play and to their own experiences...