Challenge readers of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath to create a museum exhibit that uses artifacts to focus on one issue raised by the award winning story of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the Joads.

Tone and Mood are not synonymous! Introduce young readers to these literary devices with a series of exercises that not only point out the significant differences between the terms but also shows them how to identify both the tone and...

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is famous, in part, because it established a uniquely American form of humor. For this famous story, Mark Twain combines the tall-tale, the dialect story, and satire. Here is a resource...

The difference between renewable and non-renewable resources is the focus of a short reading comprehension worksheet that asks kids to respond to a series of questions based on the provided passage.

Get to know your scholars with this in-depth survey that asks learners to rate, answer true or false, write short answers, and draw abstract visuals about their academic and personal preferences.

What would it have been like to have heard the debate on the issue of slavery at the Constitutional Convention of 1787? With this resource, you are given the opportunity to read through a reconstruction of speeches on the topic with your...

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass serves as the anchor text for a instructional activity on symbolism. Readers use the provided worksheets to examine the symbols in the novel as well as in the world around them.

Now what? Class members continue their close reading of Ethan Canin’s short story “The Palace Thief,” focusing on Hundert's feelings about his retirement, and consider what these feelings reveal about his character.

Introduce learners to the debate format with an activity that uses the National Park Service's controversial Channel Islands restoration program as a topic. Class members learn how to generate provocative debate questions, how to prepare...

Most think Elijah in Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis gets famous for being the first African American child born free from slavery. However, his true fame comes from his adventures to capture a thief. Readers study...

Milo, a character in Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, was bored. When a tollbooth showed up in his room, he went through it simply because he has nothing else to do. Scholars read about his adventures and complete worksheets...

How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty...

Class members continue their reading of Ethan Canin's "The Palace Thief," focusing on how the relationship between the narrator and Sedgewick changes after the narrator meets Sedgewick's father.

Get your class members thinking about a reading passage's topic, main idea, supporting details, and theme with this interactive presentation that asks scholars to define, locate, and review each term.

Did Bernie Madoff fit the profile of a Ponzi schemer because, as Diana Henrique contends in an excerpt from her The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death, he “did not fit the profile of a Ponzi schemer”? Huh? Groups begin their...

What factors help people achieve goals? What factors prevent people from achieving goals? What are the elements that need to be in place to make a team function well? Using Damien Lewis’ Desert Claw and John Francome’s Winner Takes All,...

More of a worksheet than a complete lesson plan, this resource includes several pre-reading and post-reading discussion prompts for The Bernstein Bears and Too Much Teasing. The prompts on this worksheet are designed to help...

These reading comprehension questions are pointed to references in Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Haunted Palace." Specific quotes paired with multiple-choice answers ask the reader to recall the poem. Receive answers when students submit...

Focusing on the words uttered in Shakespeare's Othello, select the speaker from several options. All but one question give parts of lines and either ask the reader to identify the speaker or complete the quote.

A solid comprehension strategy is used to aid learners in better understanding what they read. They are introduced to the way good readers ask questions while their reading to understand what's going on in a story. The class reads...

Students recognize similarities and differences in plants. In this plants and animals lesson, students begin to classify living things by observable characteristics. Students watch clips from the Internet and play online games. Students...

Build reading comprehension and critical-thinking skills as learners focus on discerning fact from opinion. First, introduce the two terms as you test prior knowledge and explain their meanings (there is a scripted explanation here for...

Readers of Nineteen Eighty-Four use their answers to questions about George Orwell's tale to complete a crossword puzzle.

What makes an event newsworthy, worth a reference in a news magazine or textbook? Who decides? These are questions Marilyn Nelson asks readers of her poem "Making History" to consider. To begin, class members list details they notice in...