Curated OER
Word Wake
Put your common writing errors to rest with this resource, which prompts high schoolers to create eulogies and tombstones for overused and incorrect words. They work on correcting common errors in spelling and usage mistakes in their own...
Curated OER
100 Questions
Students practice problem solving skills by asking questions and participating in a design challenge. In this asking questions lesson, students work in pairs to ask questions to design a solution for a difficult personal problem....
Curated OER
Emergency Shelter Project: Empathy Unit
High schoolers design emergency shelters. In this designing emergency shelters lesson, students discuss living conditions of people after a natural disaster. High schoolers discuss the tsunami that struck East Asia. ...
Curated OER
Design a Latin American Restaurant
Students investigate the culture of a Latin American country to design a new restaurant. In this Latin American lesson plan, students identify social classes, geographical locations, cultural practices, and monetary systems of a Latin...
Curated OER
Critical Analysis Leads to Global Action
Young scholars discover the interconnectedness of the world. In this global studies lesson, students identify challenges the world faces and craft solutions to the problems they identified. Young scholars present their findings in a...
Curated OER
How To Demystify Mythology for Your Learners
Use visual aids and live performances to help connect ancient myths to human emotions.
PBS
Pbs: Academic Vocabulary in the Common Core: Middle School English Language Arts
This video [14:33] shows a demonstration of academic vocabulary instruction through the context of a complex work, a poem. The teacher demonstrates how to access the literal meaning of new vocabulary and then infer the deeper meaning....
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Analyzing Complex Text
During this activity, students will use close reading strategies to analyze aspects of the setting in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. [7:57] CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.10, RL.11-12.10a/b Text Complexity
Buck Institute
Pbl Works: What Does It Mean to Align Pbl With Common Core?
[Free Registration/Login Required] Seeing the phrase "CCSS Aligned" on everything and wondering if it truly aligned? This article and video discusses five considerations to look for in problem based learning. To ensure alignment to...
McGraw Hill
Mc Graw Hill: How to Use Strategies to Teach Students to Access Complex Texts
In this short video, the strategies of summarizing, clarifying, and asking-answering questions are used. These instructional tools will help teachers show students how to access complex texts. [5:54] CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.10
Education.com
Education.com: Rl.3.10 Worksheets: By End of the Year, Read and Comprehend Lit
[Free Registration/Login Required] Links to 30 worksheets and graphic organizers that can be downloaded and printed. Each worksheet focuses on skills highlighted in standard RL.3.10: By the end of the year, read and comprehend...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Rl.4.10: Read and Comprehend Literature in Grades 4 and 5
Links to 94 lessons and activities that build student skills in standard RL.4.10: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, in the grades 4 and 5 text complexity band proficiently,...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Story Starting Participles
In this lesson, Roni Schotter's picture book entitled The Boy Who Loved Words is used as the mentor text. This Language Arts Common Core Standards-aligned lesson pre-writing task engages students in writing a collection of ideas of story...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Cities in Mesopotamia: Understanding a Complex Text
In this instructional activity, 6th graders use details from a nonfiction article to create a visual representation and then, from that visual, provide evidence that demonstrates their understanding of the text. Includes samples of...
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
Ascd: Building Literacy in Social Studies: Ch 1: Reading Social Studies Texts
Article provides excellent tips and strategies for building comprehension and critical thinking skills in Social Studies. It describes some of the challenges students have with reading and understanding their textbooks.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Themes in Literary Texts (English 6 Reading)
Learn how to infer the implicit theme in a work of fiction, distinguish theme from topic, and make complex inferences using textual evidence.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Analyze Development of Plot Through Characters in Literary Text
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Often characters are a driving force behind the plot. In this lesson, students will learn how complex, multilayered characters contribute to the development of a story's plot...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Reading Comprehension and Classroom Discussions
This tutorial focuses on active reading comprehension strategies including reading aloud, taking notes, summarizing, and writing in the margins of books to improve retention and class discussion. It includes two Flickr videos on active...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension
Comprehension strategies are conscious plans - sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Key Literacy Component: Text Comprehension
Text comprehension allows readers to extract or construct meaning from the written word. Students who misread words or misinterpret their meanings are at a disadvantage. Proper instruction can boost students' skills in this key area.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Craft and Structure: Determine the Meaning of Words and Phrases
Learn how to use context clues to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word in a Social Studies passage.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Speaking, Listening and Writing Compound Contrasting Sentences
Students will be answering text-dependent questions in which they will have to describe the differences between the different characters, settings, and major events in our stories using complex contrasting sentences. The students will...
Other
Ncrel: Reading Strategies: Before, During, and After [Pdf]
This page provides a detailed chart to aid students' understanding of texts. It goes through the steps of pre-reading, during reading, and after reading, outlining what students should be thinking about as they interact with a text. This...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Using Comprehension Strategies With Elie Wiesel's Night
Working in small groups, students read and discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir Night and then take turns assuming the "teacher" role, as the class works with four different comprehension strategies.RI.11-12.4 Word meaning, RI.11-12.10b Text...