Do students really need to be taught how to read cartoons, comic books, and comic strips? Yes. Just as they need to learn how to read other forms of graphic text such as diagrams, photos, timetables, maps, charts, and tables. Young...

Acquaint your class with informational text through a close reading. First, examine a couple of pages together, looking at text features and content. The whole class focuses on marking down a brief summary of each paragraph before...

Organize the characters in Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic according to their shared character traits. After listing character traits as a class, kids note which characters exhibit particular characteristics with a...

Convey how to determine appropriate and credible online sources with a series of three lessons. After completing the lessons, class members will know what kinds of sources to use, how to identify credible sources, and how tone and style...

Have your class doing everything from reading literature, analyzing literary devices, identifying independent and dependent clauses, discussing, and writing creatively with the rich resource found here. After a mini lesson on independent...

What do you call a tiny collection of galaxies? A puny-verse! Young scholars graph data gathered by scientists studying Cepheids. They attempt to identify a relationship between the variables through standard and logarithmical...

When would two paws up denote a blockbuster film in your classroom? Only when young writers create movie reviews from a pet's perspective in this imaginative expository writing practice. This engaging topic begins with a class discussion...

Incorporate technological fluency with a search for examples of active and passive voice in online resources. Discuss how use of active or passive voice influences mood or tone and contributes to author's purpose. List of...

Scholars demonstrate their knowledge of root words aqua and aud, and develop vocabulary skills by completing of a chart, handout, and worksheet using creative thinking skills, a dictionary, and a thesaurus.   

An interesting resource addresses the role of youth in civic participation and community events. It also explains the role of the justice system in creating boundaries and how citizens play a part in the judicial process.  Pupils...

For the final step of the performance task for this unit, class members will create an illustration to go with the paragraph on their bookmark. After looking at models, guide pupils toward recognizing the criteria for an effective...

Explore a variety of fables to learn life's lessons through engaging stories. Add rigor to the learning process with activities that include matching a a fable to the story's moral, short answer exit slips, and a three-column graphic...

Students read short stories and write a response to the story about the character and their significance. In this character lesson plan, students also create a poster to represent their character.