With the Common Core State Standards' growing focus on informational text, it's the perfect time to showcase this PowerPoint to your team of teachers. It's 59 slides focus on seven best practice structures: reading-as-thinking,...

Students create a brochure for new students. In this writing process instructional activity, students brainstorm, create and edit ideas for making a brochure for new students. Students use a word processor to make the brochure...

Get your class going on one of the final assessments for a unit on short stories by introducing iMovie and its main features. In this tenth lesson in a series of fourteen, pupils take some time to explore iMovie before conducting an...

Although not a complete lesson plan, this set of emotionally powerful texts could be used in a variety of lessons. From The New York Times' Learning Network site, the resource includes a poem, an excerpt from a New York Times article and...

Who was Vincent van Gogh? Most of the questions can be answered in two or three sentences; however, there is at least one essay prompt and one personal response question that require longer answers. Questions call for a good mix of...

Each of the slides in this presentation provide learners with an image found at a northwestern art museum and a critical analysis of what can be seen in each piece. Learners can view this prior to a museum trip in order to build...

Students perform a reader's theater. In this analyzing text instructional activity students perform Master Man: A Tall Tale of Nigeria, a play by Aaron Shepard.  The students are assessed on their performance.

Build beautiful books in whatever style you'd like with an intuitive and adaptable app for constructing books. Kids can add images, drawings, text, and audio to make books about any subject. When complete, learners can wrap up the...

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens has delighted readers for generations. An in-depth study guide gives an overview of an adaptation of the classic story for the stage. Along with summaries of the plot and key characters, theater...

A large part of analyzing or understanding art is knowing how to read about it. The New York Times has put together these who, what, where, when, and how questions to aid learners in comprehending informational pieces related to art and...

First graders identify text features and how they communicate meaning to the reader. In this media literacy instructional activity, learners view the movie The Lorax and discuss how students from another country would respond to this...

What does it take to develop and publish a newsletter? Young academics create a newsletter with original artwork for their school or community. They explore social justice themes and spread messages of tolerance and inclusion. Scholars...

A project-based lesson has pupils create a bulletin board to share artwork, nonfiction articles, and messages based on social justice themes. The finished board is displayed in the community to create a place for discussion. 

A writer has the responsibility to defend the less fortunate members of society. At least that was the view of Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables. The novel is the subject of a study guide from Orlando Shakespeare Theater....

In this advertising leaflets activity, students explore and analyze how to recognize persuasive language and visual features in five leaflets. Students also fill out an advertising leaflet chart.

Students listen to a broadcast of War of the Worlds and illustrate what they hear. In this persuasive text lesson students prepare for making a movie poster intended to persuade a director to make a film based on a short story.

Celebrate sean-nós, céilí, and the lilting music of the Emerald Isle with a set of language arts activities! Learners complete word puzzles, vocabulary exercises, and comprehension questions about traditional Irish music.

You set the rate! Step into the shoes of a taxi driver in New York City, and also pretend to be a person who uses taxis to get around town. The class will conduct collaborative research to learn about the history of taxis. Then, they...

Have your class create their own art exhibit. Learners study the exchange of artwork between the Louvre in Paris and two American art museums, and create an introductory exhibit featuring European and American art from the Renaissance...

The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...

"The Hare and the Water," a Tanzanian folk tale, lends a global perspective to literary analysis. Learners spend the first two days reading and storyboarding. On day three, they examine folk tale elements (worksheet included), and design...

Reading, writing, and rings! A lesson from NASA combines space science with authentic reading and writing tasks. Included in this lesson are pre-reading activities, four mini informational booklets on Saturn, a structured...

Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic...

What a lovely way to incorporate artwork into your language arts activity. View artwork in illustrated manuscript pages, depicting insects, animals, plants, flowers, and ornate writing in the Getty Museum. Practice using figurative...