Core Knowledge Foundation
Unit 2: The Middle Ages
Over four weeks, fourth graders read and discuss texts about the Middle Ages. They practice vocabulary, spelling, and grammar, such as nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Writing opportunities allow learners to boost their note-taking skills...
Curated OER
Lyddie: An Instructional Unit Resource Guide
Katherine Paterson’s young adult novel Lyddie is the foundation of a differentiated instruction unit that not only explores the rise of industrialization and labor but women’s rights issues as well. After learners read the novel, they...
Curated OER
Writing Session: Writing a Summary
The similarities and differences between academic and everyday summaries/abstracts are explored in this PowerPoint. After reading "Historiographic Reflection on Israel’s Origins: The Rise and Fall of the Patriarchal Age,” and abstracts...
Curated OER
Summarizing Key Information
Imagine the surprise when small groups present their Evidence Charts to the class and discover that each group has studied a different version of the Cinderella story. Irish, Ojibwa, Egyptian, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Mexican, and...
Teach-nology
Author’s Purpose
What is the author's purpose in writing a joke book? What about a book about the digestive system? Explore author's purpose with a worksheet that challenges kids to identify whether ten books are meant to entertain, inform, or persuade.
Lakeshorelearning
Read and Write about It
Reading informational text is a skill that transcends subjects and grade levels. Practice reading about different topics in various formats with a language arts lesson that includes opportunities for writing and research as well.
EngageNY
Performance Task Preparation: Peer Critique and Mini-Lesson Addressing Common Errors: Revising Draft Essay to Inform
Time to revise! Using a writing evaluation rubric, scholars participate in a peer editing process to provide feedback on each others' informative essays. Next, pupils begin revising their drafts based on the feedback they receive.
EngageNY
Planning Writing: Making Notes for the Accessing Books Around the World Informative Paragraph
Encourage your young writers to thoughtfully plan and organize their work. First, model how this is done and vocalize your thought process as you work. Next, create a class list of strategies that they can use during independent writing...
EngageNY
Writing a First Draft: Accessing Books Around the World Informative Paragraph
Supervise the final drafting of a well-organized paragraph by following the steps outlined in this plan. Using the included sample paragraph as a model, class members brainstorm criteria for quality work and then compose their paragraphs...
EngageNY
Revising My Accessing Books Around the World Informative Paragraph for a Hook to Captivate My Reader
While this is considered optional within the unit it is designed for, pupils would benefit from the listed activities. Working on writing and revising a paragraph about librarians who travel to isolated areas, class members can add some...
Nancy Fetzer's Literacy Connections
Expository Paragraph
Upper elementary and middle school writers learn how to craft an expository paragraph by following the six steps detailed in a 48-page instructional guide. Learners learn how to write six different types of informational paragraphs: to...
EngageNY
Final Performance Task: Final Draft of Essay to Inform
Sometimes, it's fun to follow the rules. Using their drafts of an evidence-based essay from previous lessons, scholars write their final informative essays about rules to live by. Next, they choose and share quotes from their essays that...
EngageNY
Informative Paragraph Pre-Assessment: What Is One Reason You Want the Power of Reading?
This writing pre-assessment has minimal instruction but maximum support and encouragement. It begins with a review of the book, Rain School, through a think-pair-share and small group discussion. The discussion focuses on the idea that...
Channel Islands Film
Santa Cruz Island - Writing for Information
After re-viewing a documentary segment on the restoration of Santa Cruz Island,, individuals craft an essay in which they compare the views of the various stake holders featured in the video and identify the point of view they find the...
Fluence Learning
Writing Informative Text: School Days
A three-part writing assessment challenges scholars to think critically about schools of the past and present. Learners read informative texts, answer questions to prepare for a discussion, research in small groups, complete a Venn...
California Education Partners
Quest for Tree Kangaroo
A three-day assessment challenges scholars to read a passage from an informational text then complete two activities that lead to a writing assignment. Day one and two begin as readers independently read a passage and tag the most...
California Education Partners
Follow the Water by Arthur Dorros
Assess scholars' reading and writing capabilities with an exam that challenges learners to respond to an informative text. Through note-taking and peer discussion, pupils analyze a passage from the story, Follow the Water from Brook to...
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment, Part 2: Drafting Introduction and Conclusion of an Essay to Inform
A powerful introduction and conclusion can really pack a punch. Using the resource, scholars first read and discuss a model essay. Then, as part of the end of unit assessment, they draft the introductory and concluding paragraphs of...
EngageNY
End-Of-Unit 2 Assessment: On-Demand Analytical Essay About How Esperanza Changes Over Time
Close the unit on Esperanza Rising with an in-class analytic essay on how Esperanza changes over the course of the novel. Writers can use any of their notes and work from the unit as well as their drafts of the first two paragraphs of...
EngageNY
Editing and Publishing: Accessing Books Around the World Informative Paragraph
Provide time to polish paragraphs in class. Pupils, who have been working on these informational pieces for several days now, will have a chance to check for spelling and grammar before publishing their work. Sure to be a rewarding final...
EngageNY
On-Demand End of Unit Assessment and Bookmark Celebration
Using everything they have learned about writing paragraphs over the past few lessons of the unit, class members compose an informative paragraph independently. This is an authentic assessment of their ability, since learners have...
Teach-nology
Author’s Purpose: Inform
Why does an author write an informative article? Learners examine passages of a short reading on Spain and determine what the author wanted to inform the reader about.
Teach-nology
Writing with More Than One Purpose
It's not very hard to find the author's purpose in narrative, informative, or persuasive writing, but what happens when an author's purpose includes all three types of writing? Determine which sentences in three paragraphs are meant to...
University of North Carolina
Literature (Fiction)
An informative installment of the Writing for Specific Fields series helps readers learn how to interpret and write about fiction. The website details nine easy steps for writing a literary analysis—a useful method for all readers!