Good readers make connections between texts. The SAT regularly assesses the ability to make those connections using paired reading passages, a topic discussed in an official SAT practice lesson plan on synthesis. During the lesson,...

Fill in the blanks with a Cloze activity based on Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. After listening to a passage read out loud, kids complete the worksheet by using their memories and context clues.

Creatively develop and reinforce new vocabulary from the book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, using these vocabulary squares. Each square is divided into four quadrants asking scholars to input the word, a...

Mark Twain, the famous American author, is often studied in the school system. Use "The Prince and the Pauper" to analyze the differences between the text and its video version.  This lesson includes several culminating project...

Give this skills-based assessment halfway through your unit on Esperanza Rising. After a brief review, class members take the test, which asks them to show that they know how to analyze the novel independently. They are asked to...

To make vocabulary words drawn from So Far from the Bamboo Grove memorable, class members select a word from the provided list and incorporate this word in a joke, story, or performance.

Determine if the reading level of Running Out of Time is too easy, to difficult, or just right for your pupils with a cloze reading exercise. After listening to the teacher read the passage, learners fill in the blanks on the cloze...

Your readers will “get to wanting” and will want to know things about Nightjohn with a DRTA activity based on Gary Paulsen’s novel. Introduce the book by asking class members to examine the cover and to make predictions about the subject...

An advocate of the cloze procedure to determine what learners already know about a topic?  Class members listen to an excerpt from The Call of the Wild and then fill in the blanks on their cloze copy of the passage.  Directions...

Students complete an independent reading program. In this "Reading for Giving Program" created for students in correctional facilities, students spend time reading independently and responding to the book they read. Please note: Although...

If the Supreme Court is so supreme, why do all cases not just start there? High schoolers learn why every case does not start at the Supreme Court as well as the importance of hierarchy in the US judicial system in the 11th installment...

Here is a 19-page sample lesson that uses an interesting format. It starts with an appetizer or activity to make reading the book James and the Giant Peach fun. Then it dives into the main course or core content instruction which...

Flex those brain muscles! Scholars take a mid-unit assessment, conducting research to take notes about how a particular invention helped meet society's needs. To complete the test, they work on draft sketches for their graphic...

The Apaches: People of the Southwest offers readers a chance to employ the “Ready-Set-Go-Whoa!” strategy (an adaptation of the KWL) to test what they know and summarize what they learn as they read Jennifer Fleischner’s nonfiction...

Kids love working with their peers. Get your class into small literature circles and have them complete weekly assignments. Before beginning this week's activity, have each learner write a letter from Esperanza in California to Abuelita...

To conclude a study of Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members sharpen their critical thinking skills by engaging in a Socratic seminar discussion of Martinez's novel.

After completing Nightjohn, Gary Paulsen's young adult novel about slavery set shortly before the Civil War, readers respond to a series of questions crafted to reflect Bloom's taxonomy.

Question what you read with a lesson plan based on Bloom's Taxonomy. As kids read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, they formulate questions with cues from a graphic organizer, and answer them to work on...

Maus is the text for a postreading activity that has class members using a cubing strategy to analyze, in depth, topics (racism, past and present, forgetting/remembering the Holocaust, representing the Holocaust) associated with Art...

Want your class to use critical thinking when discussing vocabulary? Go beyond the dictionary with a vocabulary activity based on Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. Kids write the word in the center of a graphic organizer that also provides...

How well do your pupils know My Antonia by Willa Cather? Take some time to create questions about the text. After examining a teacher model, individuals write questions that match each level of Bloom's Taxonomy and draft answers to these...

The biopoem is a great way for instructors to get to know class members, classmates to get to know each other, and readers to flesh out their understanding of a character. Why not create a biopoem for a character from Oedipus the...

Fifth graders read a historical novel. In groups they reenact chapters of the novel.

Bloom's Taxonomy is a great way to address the many levels of comprehension. With explanations and examples of each level, you can create questions that focus on knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.