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Making and Using a Graphic Organizer for Solving a Mystery
Students create tables in a word processing program which helps them organize their text clues when reading a mystery story. They develop reading comprehension strategies while using a computer based graphic organizer in order to solve...
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Creating a Found Poem
Teach your English learners about theme through this found poem project. Class members read two versions of O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi": the original version and a synopsis. After learning about themes and connecting theme to their...
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Archetypal Images and Polarities
Here is a rather esoteric resource that presents the archetypes found in “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” and would be appropriate for a college-level psychology or literature class, or as a teacher resource. Considered the “world’s oldest...
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Civil War Essay
Upper graders explore equality by writing an essay. They read the story Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco, and discuss the meaning of the story and its relevance to Civil War events. Learners investigate the five writing process steps and...
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The Tell-Tale Heart
Readers listen and critically read fictional prose to answer prediction questions at designated stopping points, and then they give a summary of the short story. This lesson is ideal for English language learners developing English...
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Stone Soup
First graders examine the use of logic, deduction, and inference to determine the answers to riddles. They listen to a teacher read aloud of Heather Forest's, Stone Soup before discussing the story which gauges their comprehension....
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Making Connections
Fourth graders investigate visual imagery to aid reading comprehension. For this reading strategies lesson, 4th graders discover how visual imagery helps in comprehending a story. Students use a reader's notebook to record connections.
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Storybook Theater
Tell a story visually using this resource. Learners design a storybook theater by creating a book and painting watercolor pictures describing scenes from the story. This is a creative means to have your class practice summarizing skills.
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I'm Published! A Parts of Speech Book
Reinforce the importance of the writing process with this publication lesson. Elementary and middle schoolers compose a parts of speech book which includes one page each for nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions,...
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Octopus Lesson Plan
Children explore the life of an octopus. They listen to a story, answer prediction questions and share their prior knowledge of animals. Students observe the defense mechanism of the octopus. They create an imaginary defense mechanism...
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The Outside Dog
Students observe the book, "The Outside Dog," and predict the events of the story. At the conclusion of the story, students act out various paragraphs from the book and write about specified characters. Additional cross-curriculum...
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The Meaning Behind the Mask
Young scholars explore the world of African masks and storytelling. They create masks that tell stories of their own.
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.2
There is nothing more frustrating than discussing theme in literature, and now the Common Core requires that your learners determine two or more, and discuss the development of it throughout the text. This is crazy, but manageable with...
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Beginning to Read
Learners explore various books read by their classmates outside of school. After reading books of their choice, the class creates a bulletin board summarizing their main ideas of the book and their opinion of the book using Flat Stanley.
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Journey to Topaz: KWHL Strategy
Japanese Internment and World war II are the focus of a KWHL strategy used to scaffold for a reading of Journey to Topaz, Yoshiko Uchida's story of 11-year-old Yuki Sakane and her family. Complete directions for the activity...
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Read and Retain
Third graders practice strategies for aiding in their comprehension of material they read. Through guided practice, they read a selected piece of text and answer questions pertaining to what they have read. They practice looking back in...
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The Rooster Who Went to His Uncle's Wedding
Second graders read and discuss the story "The Rooster Who Went to His Uncle's Wedding" in the Scott Foresman series. They summarize the story. They understand the influence of Latin American Folktales. They complete a quiz on the story.
Read Works
Retelling A Life
Use comic strip format to help organize and sequence events in a story. The lesson here focuses on The Story of Jackie Robinson: Bravest Man in Baseball; however, this strategy could be used for summarizing any text. Pupils must choose...
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Break It Down!
Students practice the strategy of summarization in order to comprehend a text. They drill on how to delete unimportant information, repeated information and substitute easy terms for lists of items. Each student receives a copy of "The...
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To Tell You in a Nutshell
Students discuss the importance of comprehension and the use of summarization. Through guided practice, they follow six steps in finding and highlighting important information from an article, while deleting information that is not...
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The Environment In The News
Middle schoolers explore environmental issues. Using a newspaper, students scan headlines for articles related to environmental or sustainability issues. From the article title, middle schoolers predict the article's intent and then read...
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JIP: His Story
Students are provided with a three-column chart about a fictional character named Jip: looks, personality, and situation. After chapter 1 and chapter 2, students make notes on the charts and share that information with one other. They...
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The Gray Wolf Story Pyramid
Students explore comprehension and understanding of what they read. They practice using the correct spelling for frequently used sight words and uncommon words. Students apply the correct principles of grammar. They read the article Gray...
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American Robin: Eggstra! Eggstra! The Story Behind a Robin's Eggs
Students answer questions about robin's eggs. They read about robins, then mark up text for unfamiliar words.