Rewards of Reading

It's the classic scene: Tom Sawyer is whitewashing a fence. Expose your learners to Mark Twain's humor while reinforcing reading comprehension. Eighth graders are encouraged to read and reread, achieving as much exposure to the text as...

Enhance the reading experience with a set of lessons designed to improve textual analysis. Seventh graders use guiding questions to read both informational text and literature closely in the first part of the unit. Next, they work on...

Lois Lowry's The Giver is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking works of literature in the middle school curriculum. Round out your novel unit with a collection of reading activities, comprehension questions, memoir and journal...

Can authors speak to each other across works, genres, and even centuries? Study the conversation between Christopher Marlowe in his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," and the responses by Sir Walter Raleigh and William Carlos...

If you found five hundred dollars in the park, would you keep it or turn it in? Exercise both reading comprehension skills and philosophic beliefs in a language arts reading activity about three boys who stumble upon a small fortune —...

Word splashes, read-draw-talk-write activities, exhibits. Middle schoolers use the Storypath approach to a unit study of America's concerns during the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Teams organize a 21st century world's fair,...

Discovering the main idea in fiction is like uncovering buried treasure; one must persevere to locate it, and the reward is priceless. Scholars delve deep into leveled stories using three questions to aid in identifying the main idea. 

Read the story Mufaro's Beautiful Daughter by John Steptoe to your class, then have them identify story events that support a given theme. They read Boundless Grace by Mary Hoffman and complete a worksheet in which they list examples of...

Augment your eighth grade language arts curriculum with a thorough set of reading comprehension activities and assessments. Focusing on a variety of skills, including vocabulary in context, text structure, main idea, and author's style,...

Make reading more enjoyable and interactive with literature circles! Here you'll find detailed lessons to begin the literature circle process. Ten lessons introduce each role learners take on. Literature circle roles include...