Curriculum Corner
7th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists
Track your class's progress on all of the ELA Common Core standards with these handy charts. Along the left side, each seventh grade identifier is listed along with the full text of the standard. As you teach, reteach, assess,...
Curated OER
Are Plants Useful to Man?
Here is a presentation geared toward very young learners. Each slide includes one or two sentences using simple text and related clip art to describe and illustrate one way we use plants in our everyday life. This PowerPoint provides...
Curated OER
Organizing Main Ideas and Supporting Details
Students read given information and identify the main ideas and specific detail of the story. In groups, they read a historical title and create a "book talk" for each one, summarizing the story. In addition, students create a...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan for Nonfiction Comprehension: Posing Questions
Students practice writing questions on a selected topic. Students discuss questioning skills. They browse through books and magazines, review their textbooks, watch a film, or participate in a similar experience that will provide some...
Curated OER
Reading Through Rainforests
Students investigate the concept of the rainforest through the use of nonfiction texts. The teacher reads to the class to give some information. Then they read their own books to find further information and perform the follow activities...
Curated OER
Literal Meaning of Reading
Students demonstrate literal meaning of a fiction book. For this reading comprehension lesson, students listen to the book, If You Give a Mouse a Muffin and practice the "m" sound during the read aloud. Students answer questions about...
Curated OER
Bank On It! Martin Luther King, Jr.
In this language arts worksheet, students read a non-fiction article about Martin Luther King, Jr. They fill in blanks in the story with words from a word bank.
Curated OER
Observing the Pumpkin Cycle
Students observe and listen to nonfiction books about the life cycle of pumpkins. They practice early reading skills in a shared reading related to pumpkins. They observe the life cycle of a pumpkin including growth and decay.
EngageNY
Using Informational Text Features and Learning Freaky Frog Vocabulary
What kind of text features help children build a strong vocabulary? Class members use text features such as headers to unpack new vocabulary words. They create vocabulary journals in which they will write what they think the definition...
Curated OER
Is this the right book for me?
Sixth graders recognize strategies for selecting nonfiction texts. For this book selection lesson, 6th graders practice procedures for knowing if the book is just right for them. Students select from a variety of texts and share their...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Reading Non-Fiction
Students read and view information sent from seven high school students who travel to China. The daily reports that they send back to the weblog section of the site should be of high interest to students in Minnesota.
Annenberg Foundation
Migrant Struggle
The American Dream is a goal that many pursue, but is it truly attainable for all people? An in-depth lesson explores the plight of migrants in twentieth-century America. The resource includes a video and author biographies and...
Curated OER
The Learning Network: Reactions to Rating Teachers
Meant to be used in connection with the article "In Teacher Ratings, Good Test Scores Are Sometimes Not Good Enough" also available on The New York Times website, this resource provides 12 short-answer writing prompts that ask both basic...
Curated OER
Produce a Nonfiction Text
For this language arts worksheet, students look for the facts and create several nonfiction texts while including useful information for the reader.
Curated OER
Guided Reading "In the Night Sky"
Students participate in a variety of reading exercises, such as choral reading and reading response journal, to reinforce concepts about space and nocturnal animals.
Curated OER
Comprehension Game for Guided Reading
Students play reading comprehension games. In this guided reading lesson plan, students play a comprehension game made by the teacher. Students may play the game before or after reading the story.
Scholastic
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Practice sequencing events using Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem about the famous revolutionary hero. Learners read Revere's own account of the event, and compare/contrast the two texts using a t-chart. Finally, they imagine...
Curated OER
Historical Agency in History Book Sets (HBS)
Study historical events by combining the study of historical fiction and non-fiction. Learners read about true past events in historical fiction novels and then research non-fiction accounts of the same events. What are some differences...
Scholastic
Pilgrim and Wampanoag Daily Life for Grades 6–8
Two slide shows, viewed side-by-side, permit middle schoolers to compare and contrast the lives of the Pilgrims of the Plimoth colony and the Wampanoags. Four videos take learners on virtual field trips to the Plymouth plantation. And an...
Reed Novel Studies
Theodore Boone - Kid Lawyer: Novel Study
A child lawyer is exactly what people need ... not! With the novel study for John Grisham's Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, pupils use their imaginations to create their own examples of sarcasm. They also research a chosen famous lawyer and...
Curated OER
Character Scrapbook Teacher's Guide
Students analyze a book's characters and create a scrapbook to print and save. In this on line interactive characterization lesson plan, students identify character traits and gain a deeper understanding of a book's characters.
Curated OER
Basil Heatter, "The Long Night of the Little Boats"
“It was a miracle.” Basil Heatter’s “The Long Night of the Little Boats,” which details the miraculous rescue of the British army from the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, is featured in a series of exercises that ask class members to read,...
Syracuse City School District
Summary of Fiction and Non-Fiction Text
Somebody Wanted But So Then (SWBST)? Yes! Here's a great strategy for teaching young readers how to summarize narrative text. In addition, the packet includes exercises that show kids how to summarize nonfiction text using the classic...
Madison Public Schools
Journalism
Whether you are teaching a newspaper unit in language arts, covering the First Amendment and censorship in social studies, or focusing on writing ethics in journalism, a unit based on the foundations of journalism would be an excellent...