Curated OER
End-Of-Year Practice Test (Grade 3, ELA/Literacy)
The end of the year has arrived, which means it's time to find out what your third graders have learned with this practice Common Core assessment. Presented with one narrative and one expository reading passage, young learners...
K20 LEARN
Writing An Argumentative Paragraph: Argumentative Writing
Learning how to craft a cogent argument based on a solid claim, supported with evidence and solid reasoning, is an important life skill. Teach middle schoolers about argumentative writing with a instructional activity asking them to...
Curated OER
Venn Diagram for Compare/Contrast
Use this instructional activity to focus on a compare and contrast writing structure in your middle school language arts class. Here, young writers compare and contrast two texts using graphic organizers. They use a double bubble format...
Curated OER
Determining Ideas and Adding Details
A handy TFDC (topic/fact/detail/conclusion) graphic organizer (included) allows young writers to outline and record their main ideas and supporting details in the prewriting phase. They then continue to add details to the topic sentences...
Curated OER
Main Idea
What could you pack for a trip if you don't know the destination? After writing a list of items they would want to bring, fourth graders learn that the "trip" is to the South Pole - revealing the need to understand all available...
Curated OER
Writing a Summary
Skim, reread, and then take notes. The step-by-step procedure outlined in this resource can be used to help pupils write a summary of a reading passage. Using their notes, class members then draft a summary focusing on the main idea and...
Curated OER
The Purpose and Power of Persuasion
Examine the power of persuasion and have learners consider how it influences events in their own lives. After reading and analyzing informational texts to understand the author's purpose, class members take a written test and craft a...
Curated OER
Classifying Information About Main Idea
In this reading for understanding lesson, students underline information in a text that is important in identifying the main idea. This lesson provides good practice for students who usually have difficulty in finding the main idea in...
Curated OER
Making Real-Life Connections and Introducing Expository Text
Third graders write directions. In this real-life connections lesson, 3rd graders write the steps for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After writing, students share their papers and actually make the sandwiches following...
Curated OER
Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Map for Me: An Original Story
Students read Blackbeard and brainstorm their knowledge of maps. In this language arts and geography instructional activity, students use landmarks on their playground to review north, south, east and west and discuss the compass rose....
Curated OER
Responses to Literature
Middle and high schoolers hone their writing skills by reading Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and the poem Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out. They fill out a graphic organizer (included here), and use the organizer to write an...
Curated OER
Exploring the Expository Scenes in Macbeth
Learners examine the function of exposition in play structure. They will be able to develop multiple interpretations and visual and aural production choices for Shakespearean scenes and choose those that are most interesting.
Curated OER
Finding the Good Stuff in What We Read
Students work to develop comprehension strategies. They focus on three rules for summarizing: getting rid of extra information, organizing, and finding the main idea. Through modeling and then guided practice, they apply these rules ...
Curated OER
To Sum it all Up...
Students observe and demonstrate the process of summarizing text. They read and discuss the steps to summarize text, then in small groups read and summarize an article about frogs from "National Geographic" online. Independently they...
Curated OER
Synthesis of Information
Locating and synthesizing information is an essential part of the research process but can be overwhelming for many young writers. Eliminate some of the stress and confusion, this resource suggests, by separating these steps. To focus...
TV411
Learn the Steps to Clear Essay Writing!
Introduce your young writers to the five-paragraph expository essay format with a four-page worksheet that uses color codes to model for writers how to craft the essay. Although designed to prepare writers for the GED, the approach can...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Reading Non-Fiction
Students read and view information sent from seven high school students who travel to China. The daily reports that they send back to the weblog section of the site should be of high interest to students in Minnesota.
Curated OER
Fiction vs. Nonfiction
Students explore fiction and nonfiction writing. They identify the elements of fiction in a short story and identify the criteria necessary in a nonfiction piece. Students distinguish the author's purpose in an expository text,...
Curated OER
Reading to Learn
Pupils participate in a lesson plan that reinforces reading skills. Specifically, this lesson plan focuses on the skill of summarization. This strategy teaches students how to better comprehend written text.
Curated OER
Comprehension Game for Guided Reading
Students play reading comprehension games. In this guided reading lesson plan, students play a comprehension game made by the teacher. Students may play the game before or after reading the story.
Santa Ana Unified School District
Early American Poets
The poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the focus of a unit that asks readers to consider how an artist's life and changes in society influences his or her work. After careful study of Whitman's and Dickinson's perspectives on...
EngageNY
Summarizing and Synthesizing: Planning for Writing an Apprentice Wanted Ad
In instructional activity 13 of this unit on colonial trade, young researchers learn about apprentices as they prepare to write help-wanted ads for the specific trade they have been researching. To begin, the class listens closely as the...
Curated OER
Navajo Code Talkers
An engaging lesson focuses on the contributions of the Navajo people during World War II. Learners read the book Navajo Code Talkers by Andrew Santella, answer a series of comprehension questions about the text, and write a letter...
Curated OER
Don't Call Me A Pig
First graders explore wildlife and habitats in the Arizona desert. Throughout a classroom discussion, 1st graders observe pictures of the desert and animals that live there. As they go on a nature walk around the school, students...