Help young readers align character relationships in an activity for Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter. After kids discuss the characters and how they relate to each other, they use index cards and a graphic organizer to outline the...

Reading is fun! Here, practice making predictions and instill concepts of print including the front of the book's features, the text's message, the connection between text and illustrations, and directionality with these daily reading...

Young historians examine Lyndon Johnson's vision for a rich, powerful, and upward society as detailed in this excerpt from his famous "Great Society" speech presented at the University of Michigan in 1964.

Students read books by the author Keiko Kasza and complete critical thinking skills, and connections to different subjects. In this language lesson plan, students connect the books to language arts, social studies, science, math, health,...

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart can present challenges even for experienced readers. Here’s a schedule and corresponding guide that will help readers focus on and record important events. The packet includes fact-based, interpretative,...

“You don’t have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.” Or so says Holden Caulfield.  Challenge his assumption by asking your readers to think about and respond to some of the assertions of Salinger’s narrator. Should a...

Make analyzing the sequence of events in an informational text easy. Ask readers to craft a one-sentence summary of each paragraph in a document and create a text map. To demonstrate their understanding of the process, participants read...

Although this legislative process instructional activity is designed to accompany a specific text, it is valuable independently. Young learners participate in a picture walk (worksheet included) through My Senator and Me:...

Summarizing a text means being able to identify supporting details. Your class can learn about transportation workers in Chicago as they read a one-page informational passage. When they are finished reading they'll explain what they've...

After reading "Fire and Ice," have your class answer these seven thought-provoking questions. Some questions ask readers to connect with the text while others require the learner to reference the text in order to provide an answer. 

Before beginning The Grapes of Wrath, readers create a KWHL chart recording what they already know about the Dust Bowl, the author, and the book, what they want to know, and where they might find answers to these questions. After reading...

Good readers make connections between texts. The SAT regularly assesses the ability to make those connections using paired reading passages, a topic discussed in an official SAT practice lesson plan on synthesis. During the lesson,...

Study cause and effect in both literature and informational text with a lesson plan designed for several different reading levels. After kids review the concept of cause and effect, they read an article or story and note the causes and...

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

It is an out-of-body experience. Scholars take a look at the sidebars outside the body of the text in The Exterminator. They discuss the purpose of this type of text feature and work to determine the gist. Learners write unfamiliar...

As part of a reading of Elie Wiesel's Night class members engage in a directed reading/thinking activity that includes crafting predictions, verifying these predictions, and interpreting portions of the text.

Need an extra challenge for your best readers? Check out a unit that uses Hannah Webster Foster’s epistolary novel, The Coquette, published in 1797, as the anchor text. The resource is packed with project ideas; each with its...

For classes tackling To Kill a Mockingbird, this lesson plan sets readers up for discussions or essay writing with questions and prompts. The prompts encourage individuals to explore beyond the novel itself, looking at...

The Grapes of Wrath. The Jungle. Native Son. The Things They Carried. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. To address a current social, political, economic, or environmental issue, class groups pair the reading of a...

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a famous suffragette that paved the way for equal rights for women. Readers respond to before, during, and after reading questions based on her story. The resource is a great addition to a lesson during...

Readers learn to ask questions about text with an activity based on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. As they read, class members craft questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy and then find the answers themselves.

Use a helpful concept analysis guide when planning your unit on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. The resource covers plot elements, literary themes, and possible issues to address in order to make the work accessible...

Get readers thinking about the major themes in Victor Martinez's award-winning novel, Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida by asking them to agree or disagree with the prompts on an anticipation guide and to discuss...