What exactly does make life worth living? In preparation for a fishbowl discussion of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, readers of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel highlight sections that show a character grieving, coping, or suffering...

Here is a reading strategies lesson in which learners use post it notes to create a bulletin board. They post their new questions on the bulletin board and look back at questions they have already learned the answer to. A great idea,...

If friendship were a soup, what ingredients would be in it? As part of a study of Marcus Pfister's Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale, kids engage in a series of friendship-themed activities using materials contained in this richly...

Determine if the reading level of Running Out of Time is too easy, to difficult, or just right for your pupils with a cloze reading exercise. After listening to the teacher read the passage, learners fill in the blanks on the cloze...

What messages are relayed through magazines? How do magazines shape ideas about people? Scholars analyze a group of magazines focused on teen girls and women. After completing reading comprehension advertisement questioning and group...

Students practice summarization in order to increase their comprehension of non-fiction text. They read and summarize passages by finding the main ideas in passages from a Social Studies textbook. After silently reading the passage they...

Assist your pupils with literary analysis by discussing and exploring theme. This plan, the twelfth in a series of fourteen, builds in some time to explore theme as a class. Learners also blog about the main event in their stories and...

After having a bad day, Sally took scholars' suggestions and had a super day. Pupils listen to her newest short story then discuss the events that occurred. They sort each event by what was in her control and what was not. Participants...

Accuracy, phrasing, flow, and pace, the four traits of of oral reading fluency, are the focus of a series of exercises that are designed to help readers develop these comprehension and literacy skills.

Greed is the theme of the West African folktale, Anansi Goes to Lunch and this multidisciplinary collection of lessons. First, scholars listen to a read aloud and participate in a grand conversation about the book's key details and...

Model for emergent readers how to write a story by interpreting picture clues. For guided practice a second book is used, and then pupils work independently or with an adult to write their own stories based on illustrations.

A scripted lesson can be a big help for new teachers. This fully scripted three-day learning activity provides teachers with the means to demonstrate how to compare and contrast two topics in two texts. Learners will work as a class to...

Readers of Ordinary People employ a cubing strategy based on Bloom’s Taxonomy to analyze, from multiple perspectives, an excerpt from Chapter 10 of Judith Guest’s novel.  The excerpt, a rationale and complete directions for the...

Historical fiction can be a valuable asset when learning about the past. Integrate several novels written about the Civil War into your social studies unit, with groups of four working collaboratively to comprehend the novel from...

A review of decoding words is incorporated in a discussion on reading with expression in order to increase fluency. The teacher gives several book options for readers to practice smooth and inflected reading, giving a short book talk on...

“The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?” Prediction, verification, judgment, and extensions of thought are all part of a Directed ReadingThinking Activity (DRTA) developed for Measure for Measure. The rationale, assessments...

In many places in the world, people go to great lengths to get books to read. This beginning-of-the-year activity uses pictures of people reading in extraordinary situations to stimulate effective listening and speaking using the...

Introduce young readers to informational texts with a well-designed, ready-to-use, and Common Core-aligned unit. Young readers learn a variety of skills while studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). As the first...

A lot of secrecy shrouded the creation of the atomic bomb. Readers uncover some of that secrecy using an educator's guide for the novel The Green Glass Sea. Three weeks of lesson plans feature discussion questions and reading...

Are some characteristics more desired than others?Scholars examine attributes of characters in books, models in catalogs, and articles in magazines. Discussion leads to identifying characteristics they see more often as well as...

HIgh schoolers respond to a persuasive article on using animal research. In this english lesson, writers listen to a conversation, and discuss the point of arguments. They write a critique on a certain film and share it with their...

Visit the Magic Treehouse and take your class on a trip through time with a reading of the children's book Mummies in the Morning. Using the story to spark an investigation into Egyptian culture, this literature unit engages...

I hate doing laundry, even if it is an independent living skill that requires me to count money, follow a sequence, and sort clothing by color. Learners with multiple disabilities discuss what laundry is, why they need to do it, and how...

Jacque's soliloquy from Act II, scene ii of As You Like It sets the stage for a close reading exercise that models how to approach difficult, dense text and enables readers to practice reading comprehension and analysis...