Sixth graders access their prior knowledge of the job of Parliament and its relationship to the monarchy. For this Gunpowder Plot lesson, 6th graders research the Gunpowder Plot, summarize key story ideas, and role play the plot. They...

It is key to the learning process to make everything a child with visual impairments does as tactile as possible. After reading Anne of Green Gables, the class discusses her life events in order to make a tactile time line. They...

Second graders discover how to properly summarize important events. In this summarizing lesson, 2nd graders listen to a retelling with a lot of minor details and discuss how it could be improved. Students read a story and determine the...

Twelfth graders examine two pieces by Lu Xun to show his importance as a revolutionary of 20th Century Chinese society and literature. They explain the aspects of Lu Xun's life. They summarize "Diary of a Madman" for form and content....

Students explore language arts by completing a graphic organizer in class. In this story structure lesson, students read the poem "Sick" by Shel Silverstein and discuss the different elements in the piece which make it an effective...

Students build a variety of comprehension skills through the nine lessons of this unit. Picturing events, monitoring understanding during reading, forming questions, and summarizing stories form the core of the lessons being taught...

Students write summaries in this lesson. They read "Stellaluna" by Jaell Cannon independently and answer story map questions: who, what, when, where, and why. They then take the answers to these questions and write an individual summary.

Learners observe and demonstrate the strategy of summarizing the main idea. They discuss six rules of summarizing, and observe the teacher summarizing the first chapter of the novel "The Incredible Journey." Students then read chapter...

Students investigate the details of a chosen story of literature. They use a pyramid graphic organizer to record information. The information is used to write a summary of the story. Students use a rubric while writing the summary to...

Students write summaries of non-fiction articles in this instructional activity. They read the article silently and then pick out the main points. Students list the main events as a whole class activity, and then they individually...

Second graders discuss important things to know when reading stories, identify setting in variety of stories, create story map to record information as they are reading, state setting in their own words, discuss whether they thought...

Who is Emmet Till? An important historical figure, your kids will be shocked by his story! Discover the details of his life and collaborate to write a crown of sonnets in the style of Marilyn Nelson.

Enhance a class read-aloud of the children's story Hi! Fly Guy with this reading comprehension lesson. Children first listen as the teacher reads the story, stopping along the way to discuss any unfamiliar vocabulary. The book...

This activity may have writers evaluate short compositions, but their subjects are quite tall: great Americans. Pupils read one another's compositions and closely examine how specific phrases and diction contribute to shaping American...

Having pupils use a rubric to score a piece of writing is an excellent practice. They read a passage titled, "Firefighters," and discuss different summaries that were written about it. They evaluate several summaries then score them...

Students practice reading a text and summarizing it for their classmates. As a class, they are introduced to various ways of summerizing material and use them to summarize two articles. They are asked questions to reinforce what they...

In this literature lesson, students listen to folk tales and then discuss the main ideas and plot of the story. Additionally, students guess what story is being talked about when their teacher describes the main idea and plot. Good...

Students observe and demonstrate a variety of summarization strategies. They silently read an article from National Geographic Kids, and as a class write a summary that includes the main idea and details and the five W's. Students then...

Students read a short fiction book and demostrate comprehension by identifying the main characters, setting, conflict, theme, and summarizing the main points. They organize the information in Inspiration and create a powerpoint to show...

Ninth graders summarize and paraphrase a short story read in class. They identify the six story elements of character, setting, plot, conflict, solution, and tone/mood. Students create a PowePoint presentation that illustrates the...

Seventh graders identify the various elements of a short story. After reading Rudyard Kipling's short story, "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," students identify the author's purpose in writing the story as well as the elements that make it a short...

Students work in small groups and prepare an analysis of a short story to be presented to their peers. They research the story and create a handout or a visual aid that cites sources of information and summarizes the main points of the...

After reading a book on their own, pupils prepare an oral report on the book,  and sit in the "Readers Report Chair" when giving the report to the class. They are taught to briefly summarize the book by talking about one of two...

Here is a way to build your pupils' public speaking abilities. The lesson describes a reader's report chair, which is used each week by a student who has just finished reading a book. The featured reader sits in the chair and talks about...