Scholars explore an expository text to answer questions about its structure.

Students read a text and summarize what they have read to others. In this summarization worksheet, students also cross out unimportant details.

Scholars learn about the Hero's Journey as they read Ray Bradbury's "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." They analyze the story's structure and narrative techniques. Finally, they write summaries of the text's central idea and use their...

If you're looking to set your class up for writing effective arguments, try out this idea. While originally created with freedom as a guiding idea, the activity could easily be adapted for other themes. As a class, create a chart of...

Can your class sum up a text in a few sentences? Help them build this skill by starting nice and slow. For this summarizing activity, the teacher marks the main ideas with sticky notes. Learners read and reread the text, pausing at the...

Elevate children's reading comprehension skills with this collection of guided reading resources. From paper dice with basic comprehension questions printed on them to a system for using sticky notes to identify key...

An activity promotes reading comprehension. Readers analyze a text of their choice while activating prior knowledge and asking and answering questions. Scholars enforce multiple strategies to improve comprehension.

The Cay has been criticized by groups such as the Council on Interracial Books for Children because of the way race is portrayed. Explore the argument against the book while taking the author's perspective into account. Class members...

Given the least squares regression line, interpret the slope and intercept in the context of the relationship between texting and GPA. Although this task is short and looks simple, some subtle points can be brought to light in a...

Guide your class through a text with resources for before and after reading. Learners ask questions, discuss characters and plot points, point out elements of the reading that stood out, and compose brief summaries.

How can learners evaluate research sources for authority, accuracy, and credibility? By completing readings, discussions, and graphic organizers, scholars learn how to properly evaluate sources to find credible information. Additionally,...

Here is a fitting question for middle schoolers to consider: Is there a relationship between grade point average and frequency of sending texts? Starting statisticians examine a scatter plot and discuss any patterns seen.

Invite your learners to take a close look at Abraham Lincoln's presidency through analysis worksheets of several images and primary documents, presented on an educational poster entirely dedicated to this great United States...

Historians follow FDR's Infamy speech from rough draft to the official address to the Senate. An intriguing activity compares and contrasts FDR's original speech to the official version. Academics also listen to FDR address the Senate....

Identifying the theme or central idea of a text is a skill many young readers struggle with. It is also the second standard for reading literature in the Common Core. This resource, one from a series of Common Core lessons, can provide...

High schoolers synthesize the information they've learned from each chapter of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting with a creative summarizing activity. With a graphic organizer for all of the book's chapters, readers title...

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...

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles provides the text for a fishbowl activity. Class members to sit in concentric circles, with the center circle discussing the topics from the book, and the outer circle observing the...

Energize biologists with colorful images in an activity that captivates the imagination while demystifying the subject of cellular respiration. Participants build comprehension skills and access core content knowledge by analyzing text...

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...

Although the ideas on how to implement the skill RI.9-10.2 are lacking, the assessment would work well for challenging learners to summarize, and identify the main ideas of presidential speeches that are of similar topics. One could use...

The Bill of Rights is a foundational document of American democracy, much like the Nuremberg Laws were a foundational document of the Reichstag of Nazi Germany. But that's where their similarities end. Engage high schoolers in a...

Six tasks make up a lesson plan designed to reinforce comprehension and language skills using the poem "The Pied Piper" by Robert Browing. Scholars discuss and define unknown words, identify adjectives and onomatopoeia, review...

How many of your pupils play an instrument? A musical science lesson will help all of them understand how string instruments work. Young scientists construct a string-and-pulley system to test frequency and pitch. The lesson...