Gwinnett County Public Schools
Analysis of the Tuck Everlasting and The Birchbark House Text Exemplars
Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
Mummies in the Morning Egyptian pyramids, hieroglyphics
Visit the Magic Treehouse and take your class on a trip through time with a reading of the children's book Mummies in the Morning. Using the story to spark an investigation into Egyptian culture, this literature unit engages...
Curated OER
Saturday Market by Patricia Grossman
Readers make personal connections to Saturday Market by Patricia Grossman and answer comprehension questions while reading the book. Comparing and contrasting the different characters in a Venn diagram leads to a kinesthetic activity...
Museum of Tolerance
Immigration Journeys
Through the journey of four stories of immigration, scholars complete graphic organizers and apply knowledge to create a visual representation of their findings on a large poster. Third and fourth readers write a letter to their family...
For the Teachers
Cause and Effect Matrix
Study cause and effect in both literature and informational text with a lesson designed for several different reading levels. After kids review the concept of cause and effect, they read an article or story and note the causes and...
Saddleback Educational Publishing
The Jungle Book: Study Guide
Delve into The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling with a helpful study guide. Crossword puzzles, comprehension questions, character descriptions, chapter summaries, and vocabulary exercises connect readers with the classic text of a boy and...
Curated OER
Making History....Literary
Connect the Common Core ELA standards with history by employing a balanced literacy approach to reading.
Teacher Printables
My Questioning Tower
Good readers think about what they are reading. They ask questions and make predictions before beginning a text. While reading, they summarize what has happened and note what they have discovered. After finishing, they check to see if...
Curated OER
Dear Diary
Work on narrative writing with this lesson, in which middle schoolers analyze the characters from a selected piece of literature and write narrative diary pieces as the character. They work to understand the point of view of the...
Scholastic
Holes Match 'Em Up Challenge
Upper graders read the book Holes as a class or by themselves. In groups, they identify symbols and discuss how they are connected among the many plots in the story. They create a timeline in which they sequence the main events to end...
Curated OER
Reading a Dialect
Reading a dialect can be difficult; show readers that it can also reveal fascinating details! They read two extracts from Jane Gardam's The Hollow Land, which is written in a British dialect. Readers answer comprehension questions,...
Curated OER
Picture This!
Students become fluent readers by assessing the strategy of visualization to visualize each event in a story. They use imagery to visualize all types of literature. Each student receives a copy of "Sideways Stories from Wayside School,"...
Curated OER
Making Mind Movies
Students interact with the strategy of visualization to better understand what is happening in a story. They assess the poem, "Talented Family," and the book, "Sarah Plain and Tall," to visualize and imagine in their minds pictures of...
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
Civil War on Sunday
Reading Mary Pope Osborne's Civil War on Sunday? Here's a packet crammed with activities, exercises, reading guides, and project suggestions. A must-have for your curriculum library.
Freeology
Strategies for Reading Posters
Clarify, connect, evaluate, predict, question. Laminate and display these colorful posers about the classroom to remind readers of the five basic strategies for comprehending all sorts of text.
Curated OER
Figuring Out Frost
Fourth graders read "The Runaway" by Robert Frost and analyze it for its literal and symbolic meanings. They compare their personal experiences with the poet's suggestions about youthful attitudes and behaviors. Some nice worksheets are...
Curated OER
Connecting Characters and Themes in Julius Caesar
Fourth graders prepare for the literary analysis. They locate, interpret, evaluate and analyze the relationship between a character and the theme. After a lecture/demo, 4th graders write topic and detail sentences, then correctly put...
Curated OER
The Red Badge of Courage: A New Kind of Realism
Sudents compare specific excerpts from The Red Badge of Courage to first-hand accounts of Civil War battles, in text and images and list elements of Crane's style in The Red Badge of Courage that contribute to its realism.
Curated OER
Language Arts: Awesome Authors Website
Students examine the writing techniques of professional authors and apply them to their own work. In pairs, they email authors to discover the tricks of the trade. Students create their own Website for their work.
Curated OER
Using Multicultural Literature with Science
Fourth graders listen to The Great Ball Game and discuss the roots of the tale. In this multicultural tale students identify the realistic facts about the Abnenaki Indians. Students use the Internet to find out about the author and...
Curated OER
Poetry and Visualization
Students use visualization techniques when reading poetry. In this visualization and poetry lesson, students work in groups to present a tableau that depicts a word from the poem as classmates guess the word. Students then read the...
Curated OER
The Tale of Despereauz
Fourth graders read text and draw inferences or conclusions about the text. In this reading lesson, 4th graders discuss their opinions on what was read and state why they think that way to a partner.
Curated OER
Main Events in Fiction
Students complete a literature analysis of fiction texts to study elements of fiction. For this fiction analysis lesson, students read various fiction texts and examine them to learn about fiction elements. Students learn to draw...
Curated OER
Finding Self-Reliance
Fourth graders relate what is read to their own experiences and feelings and use active listening to respond to other students' comments. After a lecture/demo, 4th graders utilize an Active Listening Chart imbedded in this plan to gain...