Learning stations aren't just for little ones; middle schoolers can have fun while learning about the main character in the book, The Kid in the Red Jacket. Outlined are three different activities that are completed as each small...

Identify main events in a text. Readers will read The Kissing Hand and discuss the main events of the story. They will use sentences strips to write down events and place them in order. Alternative books are suggested.

Discovering the main idea in fiction is like uncovering buried treasure; one must persevere to locate it, and the reward is priceless. Scholars delve deep into leveled stories using three questions to aid in identifying the main idea. 

Connect to real-world experiences by having your primary learners create an award certificate based upon literal and inferential information from a story. They present the award to a character from a story and explain the criteria used....

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...

What common challenges do refugees and immigrants face? Using the 9th lesson plan from the 20-part Grade 8 ELA Module 1, Unit 2 series, pupils read about the similarities between refugees' and immigrants' adaptation processes. Partners...

Children in foster care face a lot of uncertainty in their lives. A guide for the novel One for the Murphys introduces a main character, Carley, who is thrust into the foster care system. Chapter-by-chapter questions cover key...

Boring dialogue can run a great story into the ground; get your novelists using dialogue as a tool to move their story into deeper and more developed territory. As part of a larger writing series, this lesson has a worksheet that can...

Readers analyze an excerpt from Kate DiCamillo's novel Because of Winn-Dixie. They read silently, and then hear it read aloud. Definitions for underlined vocabulary words are in the margin, and other potentially difficult words...

Use the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin to teach your third grade class about descriptive writing. Following a teacher read-aloud of the story, the class brainstorms a list of adjectives describing the main character. Students use this list...

Poems For Two Voices are a great resource in any language arts classroom, whether you are studying poetry or not. Focusing on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this lesson prompts young authors to write a Poem For Two...

Good reading practices can start at any age. Early readers work with the teacher to read a short story about a bear. First, they identify basic text features, such as the title, author, and illustrator. Then, they answer several simple...

Help your kindergarteners identify the main idea in a story. Small groups work with the teacher to make predictions and draw conclusions. They are able to determine cause and effect relationships. The lesson is divided into several days,...

Help kindergartners learn to identify the main events in fiction. They will review elements of fiction, retell information found in the text, and discuss their real-life daily experiences. All the while, they will be asking themselves...

Expose your class to Waiting for the Biblioburro, narrative nonfiction that will act as the bridge between ficiton and informational texts to come. Class members do a close reading of the text, looking at excerpts instead of the whole...

Turning 11 comes with a range of emotions. Explore those emotions by reading the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. Readers analyze the main character's reactions to the events of her day. Then, they write an essay describing what...

An in-class reading of Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece Meets the Big O introduces class members to the journey motif that forms the basis of The Hobbit.

Readers create a literary scrapbook for one of the characters in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and fill it with mementoes, journal entries, letters, etc. A great way to get kids to think about characterization.

Chris Van Allsburg's Two Bad Ants provides third graders with an opportunity to examine point of view and how the point of view of others may differ from their own.

Third graders read excepts from the story, Thank You, Mr. Falker in order to gain practice in understanding an unfamiliar story by focusing on the details. They use a worksheet, embedded in the plan, which directs them to certain...

For this ninth lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit, close reading skills are used independently to find the gist of the story That Book Woman. Rereading for important details is the targeted skill to unlock a deeper...

Students hear a story and use a graphic organizer to identify problems and solutions. They also identify main characters, setting and simple plot. They illustrate one situation when they should listen to their parents.

This fully scripted lesson could be a big help for someone new to teaching Kindergarten. It outlines what you should do and say as you teach grammar and literary elements such as, main character, setting, and events through reading. The...

"That man is not truly one, but truly two." The Strange Case of  Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde offers readers a change to craft a poem combining words and phrases from Robert Lewis Stevenson's novella to create a poem...