Second graders practice asking the 5 W questions by reading a Boxcar Children book.  In this journalism lesson, 2nd graders read a single story from the Boxcar Children series and answer the 5 W's about each specific chapter....

Students practice problem solving skills by asking questions and participating in a design challenge. In this asking questions lesson plan, students work in pairs to ask questions to design a solution for a difficult personal problem....

Examine how to answer who, what, when, where, and why when reading text. Young writers listen to the story Skeleton Hiccups, and as a class answer and discuss the five W's. Independently they read the story silently, and write the...

Students observe and demonstrate a variety of summarization strategies. They discuss the process of asking the five W questions, and apply then to a passage from the book "Sarah Plain and Tall." Students then finish the chapter from...

How do discerning readers determine bias and credibility? Ask small groups to figure it out! First, each group is provided with either articles or videos that contain bias. They examine the resources, respond to included questions, and...

Eighth graders discover what makes an event newsworthy. They research topics by using the five W questions. They examine the difference between facts and opinions and practice interviewing people for stories.

Scholars examine the strategy of making a story map or outline to identify the main elements of a story. They discuss the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a story, in an outline form. As a class they read a short story, answer the...

Students practice reading comprehension by answering the 5 "W" questions. After reading "The Kissing Hand," they complete a class discussion addressing the questions who, what, when, where, and why. Students choose an appropriate,...

Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...

Encourage readers to determine if Hamlet's madness is actually divinest sense. Class members analyze the words of the play before studying related texts, including T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," scenes from...

Learners research the western movement in order to learn note taking strategies with nonfiction texts. They use the Internet to search for important information about the western movement using the Cornell Notes note-taking system. They...

So many people fought for Civil Rights in the United States. Read about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and discuss what the act guarantees. Then pass out a slew of magazines and encourage them to observe how often minorities appear in...

Following brief instruction about the Iran Hostage Crisis during Jimmy Carter's presidency, small groups read three-page sections from the diary of hostage Robert C. Ode. They write editorials from the perspective of either U.S. citizens...

Write with the senses! Try using art to inspire writers to consider all of the senses. Here, the class is divided in half. Each group looks at one of two images, imagines the senses that would be engaged, and records answers to five...

What is the root of the conflict between ranchers and environmentalists? Middle schoolers write their impressions of what an environmentalist is and does. They read the New York Times article "In New Wild West, It's Cowboys vs....

If you are teaching Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, you can't afford to miss this source. An extensive list of ideas outlines numerous discussion topics, writing prompts, comprehension questions, oral presentations, and projects. Have class...

Students analyze the different parts of a school newspaper. In this newspaper lesson plan, students complete a semantic web activity for newspapers and explore a newspaper in groups. Students create a write a report for the information....

Help your researchers as they begin to develop a topic for research with these worksheets. Included are two nicely designed graphic organizers that assist high schoolers in narrowing and researching their topic, and an efficient...

Students improve their language skills through 11 activities. In this language skills lesson, students listen to picture books, answer questions about elements of a story, enhance their vocabulary and grammar skills, use 5 W questions,...

Energize an environmental science unit on natural resources with this collection of instructional materials. From simple coloring sheets for primary grade children, to guiding questions for a high school research...

Here is a nice set of activities and discussion questions to accompany your class reading of No Pretty Pictures, a memoir of a young girl's experiences and struggle for survival during the Holocaust.

Pupils review the main points of note-taking to summarize the content of a formal or informal spoken presentation. They hear a guest speaker talk about a pre-arranged topic and take notes during the presentation. Next, they write a...

Ask learners about their personal writing habits, such as whether they keep a journal or a blog, or if they'd ever want to. Though this is not a fully developed lesson, you can use this article and question to provoke discussion and...

A great idea for showing language arts pupils the universality of themes, even in the real world! Have class members choose an idea-noun (peace, justice, war, love, etc.) at the beginning of the year or semester. They complete weekly...