Help the class uncover the story of Frankenstein. Learners answer questions and complete activities to respond to the text Frankenstein as they read. Scholars learn new vocabulary, respond to personal and text-dependent questions,...

Three quizzes are designed to assess readers' knowledge of events in Octavia E. Butler's Kindred. All questions are fact-based rather than asking readers to infer or interpret the text.

This comprehension worksheet asks readers to respond to a series of questions based on an article about the treatment of native peoples.

The number of bicycle wheel turns is as good as any way to describe the distance from school to home. An interactive lets young mathematicians determine the number of city blocks a person bicycles. They use this information along with an...

Does Bud use his rules to survive or thrive? That is the driving question of a lesson plan following the reading of Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. In an argument essay prewriting activity, pupils use textual evidence to...

Continue analyzing literature using textual evidence with a instructional activity on "I Felt A Funeral, in my Brain" by Emily Dickinson. Ninth graders bring their annotation skills and knowledge of figurative language from the previous...

Not all dogs are the same just like not all finches are the same. An interactive online lesson helps individuals learn about the causes and limitations to biodiversity. The clickable sections describe the basics of the genetics of...

The US Constitution is the beginning of Americans' rights. Use a five-paragraph passage to give a brief history of the US Constitution. A great last minute addition to a lesson on Constitution Day.

Challenge readers of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath to create a museum exhibit that uses artifacts to focus on one issue raised by the award winning story of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the Joads.

A great idea for showing language arts pupils the universality of themes, even in the real world! Have class members choose an idea-noun (peace, justice, war, love, etc.) at the beginning of the year or semester. They complete weekly...

How does San Francisco supply its citizens with enough water, even during a drought? Learn about reservoirs and why desalination could be a good solution with a reading passage about water conservation. After kids finish the...

Students research the history of paper money using the Internet in order to answer questions and create their own bills.

Young readers test their comprehension skills with an interactive practice. Pupils read a brief informational text about money then answer five questions. A detailed page appears at the end to showcase participants' work.

By using explicit textual evidence, individuals can strongly support their ideas and opinions. The presentation suggests in order to use explicit textual evidence, one must state their idea, cite evidence in the text that led...

This is a disaster. Scholars look through the book Eight Days: A Story of Haiti and discuss their wonderings about the text and natural disasters. They then complete a first read to determine gist and second read to answer...

As part of a study of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, class members respond to, and craft, higher-level comprehension questions based on passages from the text. 

Making inferences is a skill that goes beyond the comprehension of written text. In this simple exercise, young learners are provided with a photograph and asked to answer a series of inference questions using only on the...

Look it up. Scholars use a dictionary and thesaurus to verify the meaning of the research vocabulary words they defined in the previous activity. They then use sticky notes to write a synonym for each word. Finally, individuals choose a...

A mouse on a motorcycle—what could possibly go wrong? Using the novel study that accompanies Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle, pupils complete a brief vocabulary activity and then answer questions about the text. Next,...

Do your second graders like riddles? Give them a giggle and a lesson about proofreading at the same time. After reading two riddles, young writers fix punctuation and capitalization errors. They write the answer to each riddle at the...

Political ads as primary source documents? But of course. Viewers analyze the strategies involved in the Republican Party's 1984 advertisement in support of Ronald Reagan's reelection. 

Manifest, Kansas is a town where anything is possible. Scholars explore the fictional setting using an engaging novel study on Clare Vanderpool's Moon Over Manifest. After answering questions about the text and complete a vocabulary...

What kind of mouse is Despereaux Tilling ... a field mouse? A white-footed mouse? With the novel study for The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, scholars research the different species of mice and draw pictures of the one that they...

Whether or not you are new to using graphic organizers with informational or expository text, the materials in this guide will prove useful.