What's the Point?

Readers decode and deconstruct political cartoons to heighten critical thinking, extra-textual literacy, and making meaning from symbolism and metaphor. A compatible activity to use in English class when your 8th or 11th graders are...

After examining a brief article about the major art periods, readers use the provided graphic organizer to identify the main idea and supporting ideas in the paragraph.

What is happening to our newspapers? In the context of the current trends of media and the ever-declining print news industry, this handout includes two political cartoons for pupils to analyze, both created by artists working for...

Find the main idea in an informational text with a versatile lesson plan. Three levels of differentiation help you implement the strategy in any age or class level, based on the ability and objectives of your learners.

Use this page to quickly identify the central idea of a text and organize ideas for writing an informational or explanatory text. The learning exercise is split into two parts. In the first part, pupils note down the main idea and...

Difficult redistricting concepts are covered in a context that will make it understandable to your government scholars. They begin with a KWL on the term redistricting and then watch a video to answer some questions. They analyze...

The main idea of this resource is that you should take a look if you're planning to teach main ideas in your class! Cover just about everything you need to know about main ideas with a packet of materials that includes information and...

A picture is worth a thousand words, but political art may be worth even more! After examining examples of political cartoons, murals, and other forms of public art, class members create their own pieces to reflect their ideals and...

Young scholars select a cartoon to present to the class. They study it for a few minutes, write a list of questions about the cartoon. Students answer each others' questions and change the questions to declarative statements which are...

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] You will learn to find and analyze the main idea and supporting ideas in a variety of texts.