Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

Support your learners during the speech-writing process with a five-page graphic organizer. Pupils have plenty of space to write in their evidence and arguments on this resource. The organizer provides some prompts for each section to...

Introduce your classes to the Art of Rhetoric with a lesson that focuses on Aristotle's persuasive appeals and how they have been used, both ethically and unethically, to influence opinion.

Put together an English language arts unit on the six traits of writing with this helpful collection of resources. From fun songs to differentiated writing exercises reinforcing each of the traits, great ideas are provided for...

Fourth graders comprehend what they are reading. An effective strategy for comprehension is summarization. They single out and explaining the main ideas of a passage. Students find a sentence or rewrite their own that covers...

Students summarize a piece of text. After reviewing the correct way to read and summarize, students work in groups to summarize a piece of text assigned by the instructor. They write a summary paragraph using the process outlined during...

Students identify fictional story elements. In this reading comprehension lesson, students read the book Goodnight Goon, which is a parody of Goodnight Moon, and discuss the story elements. Students use an included worksheet to record...

Begin at the end. Present your class with an expository essay and ask them to create an outline of the article, paying particular attention to the main ideas and the details supporting these ideas. After a discussion of what they have...

First graders take a look at schools of the past and present, and try to conjure an idea of what schools of the future will look like. After taking a walk around their own school and taking note of the buildings and the things that are...

Include this writing learning exercise in your lesson about essay organization. After anwering five questions regarding their culture, middle schoolers use their responses to form the basis of a five paragraph guide to their culture....

In this nonfiction sharing board worksheet, students complete questions about the books main idea, vocabulary, facts, connections. Students also graph information from the book, go beyond the text, and evaluate how they felt about the...

Third graders read several nonfiction texts and practice finding the main idea for the text as well as learn about various habitats. In this main idea lesson, 3rd graders read several nonfiction texts and make habitat cards. Students...

Fourth graders label maps of Arizona and Mexico to show the people, goods, and ideas that have moved between the two places. In this Arizona and Mexico lesson plan, 4th graders summarize the effects of the movement on Arizona life.

Present the class with a slide show that will give them a great head start in writing expository and narrative texts. The information is highlighted for easy note taking, well organized, and presented in a kid-friendly manner. It...

Good discussion questions, quizzes, and tests teach as well as assess. Readers of The Great Gatsby will learn much from the materials in a 36-page packet designed to help students prepare for the AP Literature exam. Included in the...

Students identify the components of a political cartoon and formulate the main ideas.

Students practice summarization in order to increase their comprehension of non-fiction text. They read and summarize passages by finding the main ideas in passages from a Social Studies textbook. After silently reading the passage they...

Eighth graders investigate varous writing skills as part of larger course of study. The lesson is essentially a rough guide for conducting a class for writing. The main focus of the plan is organizing ideas using various strategies that...

Students view a PowerPoint presentation about Character sketches, and write a four paragraph character sketch. Emphasis is placed on topic sentences having one main idea per paragraph and elaborating. They study and discuss ways to write...

For this Animal Farm chapter one worksheet, students state the main idea of the chapter. The worksheet asks that the student summary includes title, author, topic, main idea, and quotations. In addition, students paraphrase the chapter...

Just because it's summertime, doesn't mean that learning has to stop. Support children with continuing to develop their reading fluency with this extensive collection of literacy activities.

This packet, the first in the series of support materials for the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt thematic units on silly stories, contains enrichment activities for learners who have mastered the basic concepts of the lessons.

Skim, reread, and then take notes. The step-by-step procedure outlined in this resource can be used to help pupils write a summary of a reading passage. Using their notes, class members then draft a summary focusing on the main idea and...

Middle schoolers read a poem and complete a TPCASTT chart. They make a prediction about the title (T) , paraphrase each line (P), identify poetic devices and nuances (C-connotation), explore mood and tone (A-attitude), point out shifts...