Curated OER
Whole Language Approach to Map Making
Fifth graders, after reading Island of the Blue Dolphins, explore map making using the Whole Language Approach.
Curated OER
Whole Language Approach in Solving Word Problems
Students explore the concept of word problems. In this word problems lesson, students read a version of the Three Little Pigs. Students discuss what math vocabulary words such as 'in all' and 'many more' meant in the story.
Curated OER
Interaction as Analysis: Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is a thing with feathers” is the focus of a series of activities that model for learners how close reading can lead to understanding. The whole class plays with the metaphor, groups talk about the author’s...
Curated OER
Are You Listening?
To underscore the importance of practicing good listening skills class members engage in a series of activities that model poor listening skills. In pairs and then as a whole group, class members enact different, more positive techniques...
Curated OER
Asking and Answering Lower-Level Questions
Help your kindergartners with reading comprehension using this simple sentence strips approach. They answer basic questions about a simple sentence, determining the who and what of the story. Use the graphic organizer during whole-class...
Novelinks
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Picture Book Strategy
Picture books aren't just for primary learners. Your scholars compare and contrast literary themes between the novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and the children's book, The Dream Tree by Winfried Wolf through...
Columbus City Schools
Poetry Speaking and Listening Standards
Celebrate April's National Poetry Month or enrich a poetry unit with a wealth of language arts material. Class members develop an oral interpretation of a poem and/or develop a podcast interview with a poet.
Bantam Books
The Tempest: Kinesthetic Grammar Approach
Though beautiful, William Shakespeare's prose can be inhibiting for learners who are new to his works. A instructional activity based on The Tempest guides high schoolers through the paraphrasing process, including noting the subjects...
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
Early American Novel: Exploring the Emergence of a Genre
Need an extra challenge for your best readers? Check out a unit that uses Hannah Webster Foster’s epistolary novel, The Coquette, published in 1797, as the anchor text. The resource is packed with project ideas; each with its own...
Curated OER
The poetry of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
After a study of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the impact his death had on the country and on Reconstruction policy, class groups analyze primary sources that recount the writer’s response to Lincoln’s death. As guided...
Curated OER
Maus: Problematic Situation Strategy
Do people really need “a newer, bigger Holocaust” in order to change? Or is it possible that by making text-to-self connections to the stories of others people that they can change? In order to connect to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, class...
Curated OER
Express Yourself!
Students practice the strategy of reading fluently with expression with the story "Who took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?" They read and reread the story utilizing different strategies when stuck on a word. Students practice whole...
Curated OER
Circling Ethiopia: A Novel Approach to Introducing a Region
Learners read a novel to gain insight into a different region of the world. Using a graphic organizer, they share the information they have already gathered about Ethiopia. They draw an outline map of Africa and read the opening pages of...
Curated OER
Grammar Lesson Plan: Making Suggestions
Focusing on let's, why don't, and shall I/we, a grammar lesson takes English learners through the process of making suggestions. The lesson comes with several activities, including scripts of conversations for kids to complete, as well...
Teacher Writing Center
Thanksgiving Lesson
Practice using proper verb tenses in the spirit of Thanksgiving! Learners are given holiday photographs as prompts to create oral and written sentences in a targeted verb tense.
Washoe County School District
Three Skeleton Key
Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...
Prestwick House
Teaching Shakespeare: Sonnet 73
It's that time of year to consider how Shakespeare selects his images and structures his Sonnet 73 to develop the meaning of the poem. Class members examine the rhyme scheme, the indented lines, the conceit, and the images used in each...
Scholastic
Step-by-Step Strategies for Teaching Expository Writing
A carefully crafted, logically organized, 128-page packet is an excellent addition to your unit on expository writing.
Curated OER
Approaching Walden Curriculum Unit
Students engage in a literature study unit. They use various exercises to build reading comprehension using a wide variety of literature texts. While reading the books, students are encouraged to think reflectively in order to appreciate...
Curated OER
Twelfth Night: The K-W-H-L Strategy
Readers of Twelfth Night use a KWHL chart to record information about what they know about Shakespeare's play, what they want to find out, how they plan on finding this information, and what they have learned or still want to learn about...
Curated OER
Sequential Curriculum for Advanced Writing Workshop
Twelfth graders engage in a ten-month long elective course focusing on college board review and an advanced writing workshop. Both course components focus on thinking and reasoning skills. Various approaches include sentence combining,...
Curated OER
Fable Writing--Inter-disciplinary Approach To Social Sciences
Students recognize the elements of a fable and write an original fable. They make connections with morals and other law-related concepts.
Curated OER
Seven Poems, Seven Paintings: A Teacher's Guide to Selected Holocaust Poetry
Seven poems paired with seven original works of art provide learners an opportunity to draw connections between literary and artistic interpretations. Designed to augment a study of the Holocaust, each pair is accompanied by discussion...
Curated OER
Anne Frank Newspaper
Students individually research different aspects of the Holocaust. They create newspaper articles and editorials based on a specific aspect of the Holocaust. Students come together as a whole class and create a newspaper based on their...