Continue work on the two-piece poem that compares two characters from Esperanza Rising. Give class members a few minutes to finish their drafts. After they have a complete product, model how to critique and edit the poems with one group....

When your class members have completed the novel Esperanza Rising, they will be ready to write an expository essay on how Esperanza responds to events and what this says about her character. Set your pupils up for success by...

Third graders continue to practice the close reading skills of capturing the gist and reading again for important details in the sixth lesson in a larger unit. This is a great beginning-of-the-year unit for establishing visible thinking...

Third graders practice the skills of identifying the main message in a story, describing the main character, and sorting the key details of a story into specific categories. The story they read is, The Boy Who Loved Words. Using a...

What was life like in colonial America? Follow this activity and your pupils will find out what people in colonial times did for work and for fun. Ask learners to compare and contrast the two texts and explain what the reading helped...

This is a skills-based assessment that asks test takers to use textual evidence to determine the main idea of an excerpt from an informational text as well as respond to text-dependent questions. The assessment is the middle point...

Using everything they have learned about writing paragraphs over the past few lessons of the unit, class members compose an informative paragraph independently. This is an authentic assessment of their ability, since learners have...

Present the facts. Scholars create presentations of their research on DDT using their Cascading Consequences chart and a Stakeholders Impacts chart as visuals. They discuss the term stakeholders and create a Stakeholders Impacts chart...

What would you ask a presidential candidate if you had the chance? Bring politics to your language arts classroom with this lesson, in which young readers brainstorm questions they would have liked the presidential candidates to answer....

Entrance essays are the ultimate sales pitch! Show your seniors how to market themselves in the first of six college and career readiness lesson plans. Pupils discover the do's and don'ts of writing personal statements through research,...

Can you name the job that involves scholars, classes, and grades? If you guessed teacher, you just won a round of Name That Job! The second lesson in a five-part college and career readiness unit has career seekers team up and go head to...

How do you know what a character's personality is like if an author doesn't tell you? With a focus on character development in Esperanza Rising, pupils complete a jigsaw activity to analyze the actions of Mama, Abuelita, and Miguel. Once...

Let the journey begin! Fifth graders take their first steps down the road of self-discovery during the first of five career and college readiness lesson plans. After taking an interests inventory, groups create a graphic representation...

Students recognize the provisions of federal Indian policy.  In this Federal Indian Policy lesson, students research legal documents (treaties).  Students research the Montana tribes. Students answer critical thinking questions...

After observing a map of trails that settlers took in the 1800s, your class will write a journal with the perspective of a settler. In their journals, they must describe the trail they traveled, geographical features they saw, states and...

Readers analyze an excerpt from Kate DiCamillo's novel Because of Winn-Dixie. They read silently, and then hear it read aloud. Definitions for underlined vocabulary words are in the margin, and other potentially difficult words...

To better understand the Indian Removal Act of 1830, class members examine primary source documents including letters written by Alabama governors and the Cherokee chiefs. The lesson is part of a unit on the expansion of the United...

Do you remember the days when a cup of coffee cost five cents? At A.W. Dennett restaurant in 1894, you could buy a five-cent cup of coffee and as well as a five-cent slice of pie to accompany it. The menu from that year is a primary...

Reporting the news is easy, right? Think again! Show young scholars the difficult choices journalists make every day through a lesson that includes reading, writing, and discussion elements. Individuals compare the language and sources...

Community service is a win-win! Scholars discover how to gain valuable career skills through helping others using a lesson about volunteer work. Second in a six-part career and college readiness series, the activities focus on...

Picture this. Class members follow in the footsteps of W. Eugene Smith, Dorothea Lange, James Nachtwey, and Lewis Hine by creating their own photo essay about a local event or issue.

Upper graders listen to the blues. They discuss blues scale, read a description of the blues, and work together to write an original piece. A lesson like this ties into American history and African-American musical contributions very...

If you are beginning Laurence Yep's Dragonwings, this will provide activities for the first five chapters. The objectives include making connections to oneself and the world, organizing information and events, vocabulary acquisition,...

A fossil is worth a thousand words! Individuals craft their own amber fossil of an insect in addition to molds and casts of seashells. A third activity takes the lesson a notch higher: Learners measure stride lengths between tracks and...