Could you imagine running into a stranger who looked exactly like you? Class members read about identical twins who were separated at birth, and answer three reading comprehension questions to practice comparing and contrasting...

Some of the best information to include when writing a research paper doesn't come from books, magazine articles, or informational websites—it comes from dissertations. However, reading an entire dissertation is often a daunting task....

John Muir may be a friend to the natural world, but as a short reading passage confirms, he is no friend to rattlesnakes. As young readers learn about Muir's encounters with the dangerous creatures, they answer four comprehension...

Jo's decision to sell her hair to bringing her wounded father home is a pivotal and poignant scene from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Class members read the excerpt and answer four questions about the details, vocabulary, and plot...

After reading a version of "The Tortoise and the Hare," scholars complete a plot diagram. They pinpoint the tale's beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and ending. 

Do museums offer eyes into the past? Scholars synthesize sources to make a claim in an essay about the importance each museum artifact deserves. Pupils also write to analyze journalist level of ethics as well as a speech by Wendell...

Scholars closely analyze the use of rhetorical strategies in several model texts. They work in groups to annotate the text identifying rhetorical elements, and to complete a Rhetorical Analysis chart and guided reading worksheet....

Can authors speak to each other across works, genres, and centuries? Study the conversation between Christopher Marlowe in his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and the responses by Sir Walter Raleigh and William Carlos Williams...

A thorough unit on literary analysis and character development culminates in a final writing assessment. Prompted to compare the parent-child relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, high...

Can animals sense an earthquake before the ground starts to shake? Read two short passages that feature stories about animals that acted strangely just before an earthquake. Learners then answer a few reading comprehension questions...

Enhance instruction and practice reading with a worksheet that doesn't just ask scholars to identify a sentence's point of view, but also poses the question, How do you know?

Can you tell everything about a character based on their actions? Delve into the prominent characters of Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with helpful reading tips and discussion questions. A thorough lesson...

How does one's experience reading a poem's text differ from listening to its audio version? Delve into the insightful question with the poem, If by Rudyard Kipling, as pupils compare and contrast their experience using a note-taking...

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is an illustrative source of rich prose, deep character development, and strong literary themes. Use two of the book's key chapters, which focus on Waverly's relationship with chess and with her mother, to...

How does word choice influence the meaning and tone of a text? To answer this question, class members listen to a masterful reading of a passage from David Mitchell's Black Swan Green and then work with a partner to conduct a close...

Class members continue reading "How Bernard Madoff Did It" and annotate how the author refines his idea that the Madoff scandal grabbed the attention of a public fascinated with crime stories.