EngageNY
Reading for Gist, Answering Text-Dependent Questions, and Determining Author’s Purpose: Industrial Organic Food Chain
After re-reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma using a Reading Closely: Guiding Questions handout, class members use sticky notes to annotate and determine the gist of the text. Finally, they use an Author’s Purpose graphic organizer to...
EngageNY
Reading Literature about Natural Disasters: Inferring about Human Impact through an Analysis of Eight Days: A Story of Haiti
This is a disaster. Scholars look through the book Eight Days: A Story of Haiti and discuss their wonderings about the text and natural disasters. They then complete a first read to determine gist and second read to answer text-dependent...
Odell Education
Reading Closely for Textual Details: "We, as a people, will get to the promised land!"
Take another look—there are probably more details than readers realize. Scholars analyze nine texts in a five-part unit that contains 21 activities to find textual details. Activities include close reading, independent reading,...
Teacher's Corner
Compare and Contrast Dr. Seuss
Celebrate Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss' birthday with this compare and contrast graphic organizer in which three stories are examined for their setting, characters, problems, events, and solution.
Curriculum Corner
Eric Carle Biography Organizer
Discover the life of renowned children's author, Eric Carle, with a biographical, graphic organizer. Scholars read an informational text and locate details such as Carle's birthday, siblings, favorite books, and write a reflection about...
EngageNY
Reading about Freaky Frogs: “The Glass Frog”
Freaky frogs are the focus of a lesson plan designed to boost reading comprehension skills using text features and asking and answering questions. Informational text and a poem supply scholars with animal-related vocabulary and facts. A...
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment: Identifying Perspective and Using Evidence from Informational Texts about the Dinka and Nuer Tribes
Pupils consider the varying perspectives of people in different cultural groups as they read an informational text about the Dinka tribe of Southern Sudan and complete graphic organizers. They also respond to a constructed-response...
EngageNY
Organizing an Opinion, Reasons, and Evidence: Expert Group Text 3
Let's race to the finish line. Scholars read an informational text about a chosen athlete. While reading, they add evidence and reasons to a graphic organizer to support their opinions about how their athlete broke barriers.
EngageNY
Letters as Informational Text: Comparing and Contrasting Three Accounts about Segregation (Promises to Keep, Pages 38–39)
Letters ... a lost art or good resource? Scholars add letter writing to their informational text chart and describe the features of a letter. They then look at page 38 in Promises to Keep and complete a Perspectives Venn diagram. To...
Curated OER
Reading Poetry in the Middle Grades
Bring the beauty of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost to middle school language arts. After learners read a copy of the poem, they follow an instructional sequence that focuses on sound, figurative language, and theme.
Curated OER
Using Text Features
Fourth graders read a nonfiction story that is presented to them with graphic features, and presented to them with only the text. In this text features lesson plan, 4th graders decide what the benefits of text organizers are and create...
Curriculum Corner
Nonfiction Organizer
Have your learners take some notes on any nonfiction book with this straightforward worksheet. Kids note down the title, author, topic, and a few facts they learned along with a personal opinion of the text.
Curated OER
Persuasion as Text: Organizational, Grammatical, and Lexical Moves in Barbara Jordan’s "All Together Now"
A thorough activity on persuasive writing takes middle schoolers through several activities, including group discussion, collaborative posters, and independent writing. They compare historical speeches and analyze the persuasive...
California Education Partners
Bud Not Buddy
A two-day assessment challenges scholars to read an excerpt from the story, Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis then complete a series of exercises in preparation for a writing assignment. Day one includes an independent reading...
Curated OER
Informational Text: What's It All About?
With the Common Core State Standards' growing focus on informational text, it's the perfect time to showcase this PowerPoint to your team of teachers. It's 59 slides focus on seven best practice structures: reading-as-thinking,...
National Council of Teachers of English
Timelines and Texts: Motivating Students to Read Nonfiction
With the emphasis on incorporating more nonfiction in language arts classes the question arises about how to design activities that motivate kids to engage with informational text. How about an assignment that asks class members to...
Novelinks
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Concept Analysis
Considering using Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a whole class reading or for book circles? Check out this overview that provides a plot summary, a list of enduring questions raise by and themes addressed by the...
EngageNY
Revising for Organization and Style: Bold Beginnings
Get young writers thinking about how to write a great beginning for their narratives. After examining examples of solid beginnings in literary text, young writers discuss the criteria for a compelling introduction. Then, independently,...
Scholastic
Organization Outline
Forming a strong organizational outline is important when reading a complex text, writing an informative essay, or analyzing a complicated problem. Use a straightforward organization outline to teach learners about concept mapping.
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Are the lessons of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar still applicable today? Explore themes, characterization, and plot structure with a thorough teacher's guide to the play. The resource covers the entire text and offers rigorous activities...
EngageNY
Close Read, Part 2: “Hugo, the Lord’s Nephew”
No, not literally. Scholars read Hugo, the Lord’s Nephew to compare figurative and literal language. Readers learn about simile, metaphor, personification, and idioms with a graphic organizer. Pupils then answer text-dependent questions...
EngageNY
Close Reading in Expert Groups: What is it Like in the Rainforest Canopy? (Pages 13–16)
Put it together piece by piece. Scholars read pages 13-16 of The Most Beautiful Roof in the
World by dividing it into chunks. They analyze each chunk for gist and word meaning. Individuals then create a matching game by writing chunk...
Stillwater Central School District
The Adventures… Of Alice in Wonderland
Go down the rabbit hole with a thorough novel unit for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. With a cause and effect chart, K-W-L organizer, and reading comprehension questions, the resource is a great addition to your summer assignments...
University of Virginia
Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Text
Harriet Beecher Stowe's groundbreaking work Uncle Tom's Cabin is both historically and literarily relevant today. Read the entire text in an easily navigated site that allows learners to select their chapters and easily move to the next...