Readers of Tennessee Williams' award winning memory play, The Grass Menagerie, will be neither disappointed nor discouraged by this prereading strategy that asks learners to consider what they know about Williams and his play, what they...

Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...

Thanksgiving is a treasured national holiday, but it can look different from table to table. Through a reading passage, real-world images, and class discussion, scholars take a look into Thanksgiving's importance to the...

Looking for a way to introduce class members to the concept of symbolism and multiple levels of meaning? Readers examine two different passages about the beach and consider how the writers use concrete objects, and places to...

What does your class want to know about William Shakespeare's The Tempest? Host a discussion about the questions high schoolers have about the play with a KWHL activity in which they write down their inquiries, what they...

Imagine a beautiful rainbow-colored dragon flying free in the air. With powerful imagery and sensory language, a reading passage prompts learners to follow the plot of a short story and answer five comprehension questions.

Being able to recognize patterns, craft generalizations, and draw conclusions based on information in a text passage are essential critical thinking skills. Encourage learners to hone these skills with a learning exercise that asks them...

Teach your class about the ways they can befriend and understand people who are different from them with a reading comprehension lesson. As youngsters read Taking Down Syndrome to School by Jenna Glatzer, they answer a...

Introduce young philosophers to the wisdom of China's most famous thinkers with a short bio. The reading comprehension passage includes an answer key.

This abstract for an instructional unit using three-minute mysteries, stories by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, and Edgar Allan Poe includes a short history of detective fiction, sample plans, and suggestions for exercises and activities...

Caring, trustworthiness, and responsibility—these are only a few character traits in focus of a lesson based on stories from the Civil War era. Class members explore several influential lives while reading biographies that highlight...

Read Booker T. Washington's inspiring story about arriving at his name with a short reading passage from his autobiography, Up From Slavery. After class members read the excerpt, they answer two reading comprehension...

A reading of Patrick Henry's "Speech in the Virginia Convention," Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" launch a discussion about the price one is willing to pay to...

It's alive! Young mad scientists create monsters as they explore the probabilities of genetic traits during a well-structured inquiry lesson. Pairs travel from station to station, rolling the dice and adding traits to their creations as...

Use this comprehension worksheet to have your learners read a short story about how to make a Valentine box. After reading, they answer seven muliple choice questions about the procedure. Then, they get to actually make the box. A nice,...

To allude, or not to allude, that is the question: whether ‘tis better to make a reference and engage your audience or risk confusing them or sounding dated. After reading an article about, and loaded with allusions, class members take a...

Explore the structure and content of the US Constitution in the second lesson of this five-part social studies series. A collection of activities, games, and videos complement a class reading of a document summarizing the US...

It's not easy to ask for help. Learn why a boy on a ship struggles with accepting help in "The Glass of Milk," a short story by Manuel Rojas. Six discussion questions prompt class members to make inferences from the text about character...

How did Federalists feel about the federal government? Learners search for the answers in the Federalist Paper No. 51, which discusses the powers of the presidency. Then, they answer various questions to test for their comprehension of...

The path to a more perfect union was rockier than most history books would lead you to believe. Young historians read “Antifederalist No. 47,” written by James Madison (under the pen name “Centinel”), which sharply criticizes the...

Wild feral hogs and an alligator wrestler are just two interesting aspects of Kathi Appelt's novel The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp. Using the novel study, scholars search the text for examples of the eight parts of...

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

Bring history to life through literature. The first in a series of three challenge activities designed to accompany Theme 5: One Land, Many Trails does just that through unique projects connected to historical fiction and nonfiction...

Scholars experience Shakespeare's, Twelfth Night, with an engaging interactive. After watching the story, six activities extend the learning experience. Topics include characters, vocabulary, a sequence of events, comprehension, and...