Fifth graders explore early American civilizations in a four-week ELA unit. Every lesson offers an opportunity to read and discuss a selected passage followed by word work that covers vocabulary, grammar, and morphology. Learners write...

To prepare readers for some of the themes in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, individuals complete an anticipation guide and then share their ideas in small groups.

Eighth graders read and respond to a poem. In this reading and responding lesson plan, 8th graders read a poem as a class and respond to questions about it.

Scholars listens to a story on headphones while he reads along with a visual text using intonation, correct pacing, and fluency.

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/And treat those two impostors just the same. . .” After concluding Fever 1793 class members engage in a reading strategy that asks them to connect their thoughts about the self-reliance theme in...

Select an article that explores people of another culture. After reading it as a class, distribute copies of this worksheet. It asks for a brief summary, encourages readers to make text-to-self connections, and asks learners to identify...

Explore the text, Cold and Hot, with comprehension strategies for young readers. First, give them a purpose for reading: find out what the boy wore outside in the snow! Then have them use one-to-one matching and picture clues to...

To help learners better comprehend informational texts, they work through a series of activities. They discuss strategies, make predictions, skim passages, focus on key words, and practice taking notes. This activity focuses on what to...

If only life came with an owner's manual. Pupils assemble with their research teams to discuss which of Steve Jobs' rules to live by most resonates with them. Scholars also read informational texts in pursuit of finding the gist and...

Study cause and effect in both literature and informational text with a lesson 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...

A continuation of the previous lesson, which is part of a larger group of lessons on human rights (see additional materials). Here, in Lesson 7, your class will explore more articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After...

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution takes center stage in a instructional activity that asks class members to assume the role of state senators, debate a resolution to amend the U. S. Constitution to permit naturalized...

Dive your class into a reading of Island of the Blue Dolphins with this in-depth study guide. Breaking the novel into three parts, the resource begins each section with a focus activity that identifies a specific theme or question...

After reading Elie Wiesel's Night, watching the movie Life is Beautiful, and researching World War II, class members write a comparison essay on the book and film. This includes a prior knowledge activity, discussion in whole and small...

Groups create a list of the character traits of Steve Jobs and Buddy, the main character of Christopher Paul Curtis' Bud, Not Buddy, and share and select evidence from Jobs' 2005 Stanford University Commencement Address to support their...

Connections or "links that readers can make between what they are reading and things they already know. . ." are the focus of a persentation that looks at how to make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world links.

Beginning writers practice writing and reading from left to right using green and red dots. You'll need notecards with a green dot on the left side and a red dot on the right side. Do your learners understand that print moves from left...

A rich series of activities introduces learners to the concept of culture by closely examining the behaviors, practices, and art of three distinct peoples: the Highland Maya of Guatemala, the Hmong of China and Southeast...

Groups use a Venn diagram to compare the theme of love and loss in Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement address to Stanford University students and Christopher Paul Curtis' Bud, Not Buddy.

Help readers recognize elements in a story. They will use pictures and text to gain meaning from written material. Have learners listen to the story A Plump and Perky Turkey and participate in a discussion. They recognize the...

This lesson plan pairs high and low leveled readers together to make partner reading beneficial for both. Learners read a selected text as a team, when the lower leveled reader is stuck, his partner is there to help him out. And by...

Upper graders identify five forms of transportation and describe how Kansans are connected to the rest of the country using transportation and communication. They complete a graphic organizer for each type of text structure given to them...

Get your scholars ready to read their first story...with a little assistance, of course. Projecting the short story (included) for all readers to see, point to each word so they can sound it out together. The strategy here is not to have...