Curated OER
End-of-Year Practice Test (Grade 5 ELA/Literacy)
The end of the year has arrived, which means it's time to find out exactly what your fifth graders have learned over the past few months. With the help of this Common Core-designed assessment that includes two narrative passages and...
K12 Reader
Finding Text Evidence: Frederick Douglass
After reading a very brief excerpt from Frederick Douglass' autobiography, learners cite textual evidence to support a main idea of the primary source about Douglass' humiliating experience with slavery. This is a brief exercise that...
K12 Reader
Galileo and His Telescope
Readers are asked to identify how a key detail reveals the main idea of a paragraph about Galileo.
Fluence Learning
Writing About Literature: What Is Happiness?
Jack London's heart for adventure has come to define the spirit of America and its frontier. Selected passages from the foreword The Cruise of the Snark take eighth graders through London's construction and voyage of his ship before...
Curated OER
Let's Find the Main Ideas!
Third graders examine how finding the main ideas and summarizing increases their reading comprehension. They read "The Sea in Danger" while applying the six rules of summarization in a modeled lesson. Next, working in small groups, they...
Curated OER
Summary, Note Taking, Main Idea and Details
Students take notes from oral readings and lectures to create a summary of the material. They use different sizes of post-it notes to complete the activity. They practice pulling the main ideas out of the given material.
Curated OER
What is The Main Idea
Students will investigate why comprehension is a major goal of reading. To comprehend the meaning of text, students must know certain strategies in order to be successful. Form a topic sentence that captures the meaning of a paragraph...
Curated OER
What's the Main Idea?
Students summarize a piece of text. After reviewing the correct way to read and summarize, students work in groups to summarize a piece of text assigned by the instructor. They write a summary paragraph using the process outlined during...
Curated OER
The Main Man
Students explore visualizing stories by completing a graphic organizer. In this reading strategy lesson, students read the story Pecos Bill by Steven Kellog and identify the setting, main characters and their interpretations. Students...
Curated OER
What? You want me to read AND enjoy it?
Learners appreciate independent reading through learning about authors and genre.
Curated OER
Outlining Main Ideas and Details
Begin at the end. Present your class with an expository essay and ask them to create an outline of the article, paying particular attention to the main ideas and the details supporting these ideas. After a discussion of what they have...
East Stroudsburg University
In Your Own Words... Paraphrasing
How can you put a passage in your own words without changing the meaning of the original text? That is the question facing many young researchers. The advice modeled in this presentation is that writers read the passage carefully,...
Curated OER
Email Buddies
Collaborate with another class (or school) and have your learners share ideas about their reading through the use of email. Perhaps you'll create a specific question or a few questions for writers to choose from. Not only will they...
Curated OER
Literary Analysis of Theme
Remember reading "The Lottery" and "The Possibility of Evil" by Shirley Jackson? Learners can experience and analyze the tension, themes, and human experience found in these pieces through reading and class discussion. They use...
Curated OER
Writing Children's Literature
Young scholars examine the common themes and characteristics of children's literature. They develop a list of characteristics, read and discuss examples of children's literature, and create an original children's book.
Curated OER
Teaching "Theme" with Children's Literature
In this exercise, learners examine the difference between a theme, topic, and moral. After a class discussion on the definition of literary themes, the instructor reads The Cello of Mr. O by Jane Cutler. Next, individuals analyze the...
Curated OER
Poetry SLAM: Youth Verse Competition
Use this model, based on urban youth poetry competitions, to create an engaging venue for your poets to share their work out loud, with expression. Build class community, have fun, and celebrate your authors' original verse....
Curated OER
Literary Response and Analysis Theme Literature
Analyze the central idea or literary theme found in a series of quotes from the Shakespearean play, Hamlet. For literary analysis, learners paraphrase excerpts from the play and then identify the characters' motivations for their speech.
Curated OER
Guided Reading Organizer for Chain Reaction
The class uses Chain Reaction, a magazine, to build a better understanding of Latin and Greek roots found in scientific vocabulary. They use two attached worksheets to help them read a scientific article, using visual clues and their...
Curated OER
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
In this story structure lesson, students read the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and identify the characters, setting and main themes of the book. They answer a list of study questions about the book.
Curated OER
Printing and Publishing
Explore African literature and artwork in a multicultural literacy and art lesson. Begin with a read aloud of Tiger and the Big Wind: A Tale from Africa, and afterward, have kids retell the main events in the story. They...
Curated OER
Painter of the Caves
What a great lesson! Learners read a story called Painters of the Caves by Patricia Lauber which discusses Stone Age wall paintings in Avignon, France. There is a series of discussion questions, comprehension questions, and a graphic...
Curated OER
Great Expectations: DRTA Strategy
A Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy for Great Expectations scaffolds and guides readers as they begin Dicken's novel. Step-by-step directions are provided, as are chapter one pair-share questions, a prediction worksheet,...
Curated OER
Writing a News Article
Join the newspaper business with a series of lessons and exercises focused on elements of journalism. The packet focuses on distinguishing fact from opinion, writing effective headlines, sequencing events, and editing and...