Students read excerpts from the historian Conover Hunt writing about John F. Kennedy and from primary source documents using the handout: Historical Sources and Historians. Students discuss and identify source types, evaluate sources,...

Students summarize nonfiction text. After reviewing the process for reading in order to summarize, students independently read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph and discuss the process for summarization with the...

Students review the concept of silent reading. They listen to an article and, through guided practice and modeling, create a concept map of what they hear. Then, in groups of two, they read another article on their own and map it the...

Young scholars explore the benefits of summarizing a piece of literature to increase comprehension. The teacher models summarizing by deleting trivial information from a reading passage. The students then practice summarizing...

Fourth graders read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow aloud, make predictions, compare characters, discuss plot and setting, and rewrite the ending to the story.

First graders work as a group to generate and play a game that displays an understanding of developmental level reading vocabulary based on a grade level checklist. This instructional activity really engages the creative side of your...

Third graders listen to a paragrah as it is read and write down points that they think are important. They answer several comprehension questions to check for understanding of the passage. They then read pages in their science text book...

Learners explore the Spanish language. They review their assessment task and rubric and play a card game. They draw cards containing instructions and phrases in Spanish and perform the instructions on the card in Spanish. They continue...

Students investigate the writings of Thoreau. They read passages orally and look for words of imagery in the text. Students also answer a series of questions and they convert passages of writing into theatrical presentations in order to...

Young scholars analyze newspaper articles. They review their assessment task and rubric and read newspaper articles to compare languages. They answer questions related to their articles using dictionaries as needed. They compare word...

Students discuss the importance of comprehension and the use of summarization. Through guided practice, they follow five steps in finding and highlighting important information, while deleting information that is not needed. Using the...

Fourth graders listen and observe the role play of the various versions of the poem. They take notes while listening and observing and develop their own versions of "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

Eighth graders create an informational card for a selected author. They read and analyze a book by their chosen author, conduct research about the author, and create an author card that includes a written critical response to the...

Fourth graders read about archaeology as a career. They develop a list of questions they would like to ask an archaeologist and then actually interview an archaeologist on the future of archaeology as a career.

Here is a wonderfully designed lesson on bees and pollination designed for early elementary learners. After a class discussion on bees, pupils pretend to be a bee by picking up nectar off of "flowers" in the class. The flowers are...

After reflecting on jobs people perform in the present day, scholars discuss what they believe jobs would have been like in Colonial Virginia during the American Revolution. Small groups then perform a jigsaw using informational packets....

Create an anticipation guide with your class for Life of Pi. They will have likely heard of the novel and maybe even seen the movie, but provide them with this guide to get them thinking. Eight statements are given, and your class...

Second graders role-play various situations in which they use verbal and non-verbal communication.

Fourth graders research different endangered animals in media center as part of unit on Earth Day, animals, and environment, create project based around multiple intelligence related to an endangered animal, and produce Powerpoint...

Students identify and interpret the function, usefulness or utitlity, form, beauty or aesthetics, and meaning, context or story, of objects and how they learn new skills and make things that they learn traditionally, by observation and...

Students strengthen their research techniques in locating, selecting, and synthesizing information from a variety of texts, media, references and internet resources to study regional food way traditions in Louisiana. They assess the...

Search a variety of sources to create a multimedia or book project about Japan. Learners use the independent investigation method to plan and conduct research about Japan. They use the information they discover to create a computer book...

Learners investigate Lewis and Clark. In this Lewis and Clark lesson, students search the Internet for information about Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery. Learners use maps to understand the explorations and decide which...

As part of their exploration of the American dream, class members examine primary source materials to compare immigrant experiences of those arriving early in our country's history to those arriving in the US after World War...