Curated OER
Guided Reading: Main Idea
Readers are presented with a list of three questions and asked to actively listen to a story or article to answer them. They verbally answer the questions to learn the strategy. Next, read a story to them or have them silently read a...
K20 LEARN
Annotating Nonfiction - Conflicts, Cliques, Stereotypes: What Makes Us Clique?
John Hughes' The Breakfast Club takes center stage in a lesson about annotating nonfiction texts to keep track of evidence that may be used later in discussions and writings. Scholars consider the stereotypes and conflicts presented in...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Diversity in World Literature Lesson 8: Nonfiction Close Reading
As part of their study of Things Fall Apart, class members conduct a close reading of a section of Chinua Achebe's essay, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Jigsaw groups then compare the voice in the essay...
EngageNY
Using Informational Text Features and Learning Freaky Frog Vocabulary
What kind of text features help children build a strong vocabulary? Class members use text features such as headers to unpack new vocabulary words. They create vocabulary journals in which they will write what they think the definition...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 1: Unit 3, Lesson 1
What was Shakespeare's youth like? Virginia Woolf considers the question in her nonfiction text, A Room of One's Own. Scholars begin reading Woolf's work before analyzing some of the text. Next, they write an objective summary and...
EngageNY
Main Ideas in Informational Text: Analyzing a Firsthand Human Rights Account
Although this is part of a series, lesson plan nine has your class take a break from their close study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) text to read the firsthand account “Teaching Nepalis to Read, Plant, and...
EngageNY
Main Ideas in Informational Text: Analyzing a Firsthand Human Rights Account for Connections to Specific Articles of the UDHR
Lesson 10 in a series of human rights lessons focuses on the skills of finding evidence and summarizing. Your young readers work to compare the two texts they have read in this unit: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
EngageNY
Close Reading: The Introduction to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
As part of a group of lessons, your class will return to the primary text for this unit, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Key vocabulary as well as close reading strategies continue to be the focus skills; however, this lesson...
EngageNY
Getting Ready to Learn About Human Rights: Close Reading of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
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...
EngageNY
Close Reading: Unpacking Specific Articles of the UDHR
Lesson 6 of this extensive unit finally has your class begin to work their way through specific articles from the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Before examining the rights actually detailed in the...
EngageNY
Determining Main Idea Using Text and Illustrations: Accessing Books Around the World
Ease into informational text with the lesson suggested here. Part of a unit series, the lesson draws from previous lessons and acts as a natural moment to add in informational text. Class members read one section of My Librarian is a...
EngageNY
Introduction: The Ideas of Charles Darwin
Piece by piece ... Scholars read the text World without Fish by breaking the text into pieces. They identify challenging words and determine the gist of each section as they read. They then work together in triads to answer...
EngageNY
Close Reading: Becoming Experts on Specific Articles of the UDHR
A continuation of the previous lesson plan, which is part of a larger group of lessons on human rights (see additional materials). Here, in Lesson 7, your class will explore more articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights....
Curated OER
Introducing Nonfiction
Learners are introduced to nonfiction text. In this five esson unti, students explore nonfiction as a genre. They identify the components and text structure of text structure of nonfiction text. Learners read a nonfiction passage and...
Curated OER
Check it Out...Nonfiction Can Be Fun!
Organizing information gathered for a research topic can be a challenge. Read aloud notes you have collected on a topic and use suggestions offer by the class to categorize and sort this information. Partners then follow this pattern,...
Pennsylvania Department of Education
Comparing Key Ideas and Details in Fiction and Nonfiction
Students recognize the differences between fiction and nonfiction texts. In this genre study instructional activity, students discuss what nonfiction means and write the definition. Students listen to a read aloud and vote whether the...
EngageNY
Asking and Answering Questions: Reading about a Frog's Habitat
Building upon previous lessons, scholars take to asking and answering questions about a frog's habitat. A partner discussion follows a read-aloud of an informational text in preparation for a worksheet that boosts reading comprehension...
EngageNY
Shared Reading: Learning About Colonial Trades
Trading in Colonial America is the focus of a lesson plan that boosts reading skills. As a class, scholars examine the informational text for crucial details, use their newfound knowledge to share information with their peers, and write...
EngageNY
Close Reading: Excerpt 2 of “The Digital Revolution and the Adolescent Brain Evolution”
Help scholars comprehend a challenging text. Using the resource, pupils read excerpts from an article about the digital revolution and adolescent brain development. As they read, they answer text-dependent questions and complete a close...
ReadWriteThink
Captioning the Civil Rights Movement: Reading the Images, Writing the Words
Scholars boost their knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement with a lesson that challenges writers, readers, and historians to analyze primary sources and caption their observations. By way of reading, writing, discussion, independently,...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment: Analyzing an Author’s Argument and Text Structure
William Shakespeare: a writer, a poet, a fake? For their mid-unit assessments, scholars read an excerpt from the article "The Top Ten Reasons Shakespeare Did Not Write Shakespeare" by Keir Cutler. Next, they analyze the author's argument...
Curated OER
Main Idea in Informational Text
Readers identify main ideas and supporting details using informational texts. In this literacy lesson plan, they make predictions and read the text to find the main ideas. They use a table diagram to define the main idea and supporting...
Curated OER
Anticipation Guides Improve Reading Comprehension
Beginning with anticipation guide strategies is a powerful method for improving reading comprehension. First, list initial ideas for a topic the class will be reading about. These ideas are formulated into statements, some of which are...
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: Clouds (Bauer)
What type of cloud is that? Explore meteorological vocabulary using Marion Bauer's book, Clouds (although these strategies could be used for any fiction or nonfiction text). Pre-teach the new words before reading the story...