Wrap up your literary analysis unit with a discussion activity as tenth graders prepare for an end-of-unit assessment. After they have read and annotated Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His Love," Sir Walter Raleigh's...

If you've ever wished you could respond to an author's message, an instructional activity that connects three poems with the same concept will appeal to you. Based on the first few lessons' focus on Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate...

Relationships between characters generate energy that propels the plot and connects events with a central idea. Track character development and meaningful relationships with a literary analysis lesson focused on H.G. Bissinger's Friday...

Heroes rise from adversity. That theme forms the focus of the critical lens essay in a sample comprehensive English examination. The exam, which is part of a larger series of sample standardized tests, also includes two short response...

Delve into The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling with a helpful study guide. Crossword puzzles, comprehension questions, character descriptions, chapter summaries, and vocabulary exercises connect readers with the classic text of a boy...

Is the nature of humans inherently good or evil? That is the question scholars consider in the fourth lesson of the Lord of the Flies unit. In a Four Corners activity, they examine statements about human nature and stand by the poster...

A story about feral girls raised by werewolves will have some interesting character development! Track how the girls and their teachers act, speak, and change with a lesson focused on Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by...

Pupils consider the varying perspectives of people in different cultural groups as they read an informational text about the Dinka tribe of Southern Sudan and complete graphic organizers. They also respond to a constructed-response...

What does stew have to do with bartering? Learners will find out how by reading the story Saturday Sancocho, discussing the text, participating in a bartering activity in class (once with goods only and once with money), and...

Fifth graders use context clues to help them understand unknown words. In this context clues lesson, 5th graders practice identifying context clues on a worksheet, then work with a peer to write their own story. Stories are peer edited...

How is Louisiana connected to the Holocaust? After reading The Diary of Anne Frank, eighth graders complete a research report about a survivor of the Holocaust who currently resides in Louisiana. Though the idea is a good way to...

Students examine the connection between the foods on the food pyramid and agricultural products. They identify the food groups, discuss foods from each group, complete two handouts, and construct a desktop food pyramid, placing foods in...

Develop and strengthen reading comprehension strategies through this comprehensive teaching guide. Your learners will practice making text connections, inferences, predictions, and more using reading passages from the teen-appropriate...

Clarify, connect, evaluate, predict, question. Laminate and display these colorful posers about the classroom to remind readers of the five basic strategies for comprehending all sorts of text. 

Keep your class thinking about Seedfolks after they read each chapter by requiring them to keep a journal about the story. Hand out these journal entry prompts at the beginning of the story so that your learners know what to expect. For...

Beginning readers and writers connect the dots from images to words while practicing printing. A second activity requires that they determine what letter(s) is missing from the same list of words.

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...

Have you used the directed reading thinking activity in your classroom? Doubling as either a prereading strategy, or a during reading strategy, it helps readers connect the historical background of the text to the text itself. As the...

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart can present challenges even for experienced readers. Here’s a schedule and corresponding guide that will help readers focus on and record important events. The packet includes fact-based, interpretative,...

We need the help of your history detectives! After giving them a set of questions to answer, reading groups must create their own timeline of the events. Then, as a class, have each group present their timelines. What is different? Why...

Elegant in its simplicity, this app accomplishes precisely what it sets out to do: improving the user's sight reading of musical notes. Taking the concept of flashcards to the next level, the designers also add in the element of sound so...

Join a father and his son as they explore an isolated location off the coast of Australia in the children's book Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker. Engage young learners in reading this fun story with this series of...

Students practice developing skills to read independently and fluently. They focus on fluency in order to read faster, smoother and with more expression. The practice of reading and rereading decodable words in connected text is stressed...

Christopher Columbus did not have a lot of evidence to prove that he was in India, but language arts pupils have plenty of evidence to prove that he wasn't. Delve into the world of European exploration with a reading activity about...