Even someone with a dark side can make a good decision—and vice versa. Readers explore Cole's traits and decisions in Ben Mikaelson's Touching Spirit Bear and analyze his sunside and...

Though the movement for Women's Suffrage stretched over several decades and across two centuries, the final few years were the most difficult hurdle in many ways. Use a document-based question writing exercise to make inferences about...

Get the bat facts with a short nonfiction reading passage. After reading the passage, readers respond to questions that focus on main idea, inferencing, vocabulary in context, and author's purpose.

Students make defensible inferences based on observation of perceived evidence. They use observation and inference to recognize the validity of alternative approaches or solutions.

Students develop archaeological context skills through a simulation which places them in the year 2500. After listening to the teacher read, "Weapons of the Texanos," they record what they think the weapon is. Next, in groups, they...

In this photograph analysis worksheet, learners are presented steps for analyzing photographs that include observation, inference, and further questioning.

Learners read and write a short story. In this short story lesson plan, students read a short story and answer comprehension questions on it that teaches them about the world around them. Then they write a short story to teach...

Young scholars identify and interpret the function, usefulness or utitlity, form, beauty or aesthetics, and meaning, context or story, of objects and how they learn new skills and make things that they learn traditionally, by observation...

Students analyze photographs and texts using primary source analysis. In this primary source lesson students determine whether the photographs and text are truthful.

Students examine Gee's Bend Alabama. In this resettlement lesson, students view a series of photographs taken of Gee's Bend Alabama. Students will write a series of newspaper articles based on the images, that exemplify the evolution of...

Seventh graders research the Indian groups that lived 1,000 years ago on the Llano River. They analyze paintings and photographs of tools and artifacts, develop inferences and conclusions about how the Indians lived, and present the...

Middle schoolers read excerpts from memoirs written by Gary Paulsen as examples of how to write a narrative piece. They identify figurative language used and then they write a memoir of their own that contains imagery and figurative...

Learners simulate analyzing artifacts in archaeological lab by using real techniques that archaeologists use. Students practice measuring skills, drawing, writing, and brainstorming, and make inferences based on evidence.

Your students have mastered using textual evidence in literature, but what about using this skill in informational texts.  Uh oh! That is right—they are not the same thing. Darn the Common Core! See options on how to differentiate...

Using a short news article, high school or college biologists examine the scientific method in practice. The article, which focuses on an Alzheimer's experiment performed on rats, has very limited information, so learners must be...

Note taking is an invaluable skill and requires practice. This lesson incorporates the Cornell Notes format, however the plan itself could be implemented to teach any style. The basic idea here is to use university lectures on podcasts...

Does your class know the history behind today's telephone? They will after reading a very interesting one-page informational passage. They'll learn all about the way phones have progressed to the amazing devices they've become as they...

Money can't buy happiness, but it can put food on the table and pay the bills. The first of a five-lesson unit teaches pupils about the unemployment rate in 1963 and its relationship with the March on Washington. They learn how to create...

Don't forget to read between the lines! Educators learn tips and activities to help scholars learn to infer to increase reading comprehension. Activities suggested include think alouds, backwards words, and who's who. the packet includes...

Enrich a unit on The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros with a selection of related activities. The packet contains nine activities that go from pre-reading through wrapping up the novel. Young readers work on studying...

Explore multiple perspectives through a jigsaw activity that will improve your pupils' understanding of the characters in Esperanza Rising as well as their understanding of strikes and human rights. Tapping into prior knowledge, and...

Come up with a list of requirements for this expository essay on Esperanza's character in Esperanza Rising as a class and use the list to guide class writing. Here, learners will complete the first paragraph, discuss their notes for the...

Examine the characters in Willa Cather's My Antonia with a group project. Small groups illustrate their chosen character on a large piece of paper and choose quotes from the text that tell about the character. Where students choose...

Delve into Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan with close reading and evidence-based, text-dependent questions. Part of a unit series, this well-sequenced, Common Core designed instructional activity draws on material from the...