Readers of The House of the Scorpion try to stump their teacher in a QAR questioning game. Pairs craft Right There, Think and Search, On Your Own, and the Author and You questions and the class members then take turns responding to...

Question the text with a reading comprehension activity based on Chaim Potok's The Chosen. Learners read four passages from the book and decide if the question after each passage is between the reader and the author, for the reader...

Asking questions about the text is an important way for kids to become critical readers. Use a QAR activity based on The Devil's Arithmetic to help learners decipher between questions that are right there, between the author and the...

Five important tenets of any social studies class are available for young historians with a poster that defines history as an account of the past. It encourages learners to question reliability of an author's perspective, as well as...

How skilled are your class members at summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting from a text? Find out with this assessment that asks readers to identify the thesis statement, the summary, the paraphrases, and the quoted material in an...

A fabulous set of examples and problems that introduce basic trigonometry concepts, this packet is set apart by the care it takes to integrate both radians and degrees into the material. After defining radians, the author demonstrates...

Determining which statements represent fact or the author's opinion in an integral part of reading informational text. Encourage seventh graders to read a passage about Barack Obama and the city of Chicago, as well as a passage focused...

How can you tell when an author is expression an opinion or stating a fact? Use two short reading selections to emphasize the difference between a statement that you can prove and one that you can't. The first passage explains food...

Do your fourth graders need extra practice with evaluating fact and opinion? An informative resource provides two reading passages in which learners distinguish sentences as fact or as opinion. Additionally,...

When is using someone else's copyrighted material appropriate? Learn about copyright and fair use with a lesson from PBS.org. Scholars read through a reference sheet about authors' rights and users' rights, and then create posters...

If you've ever received bad service or disagreed with a company's decision, writing a letter of complaint might be a good skill to have. Review the format of a letter, author's purpose, and other aspects of persuasive writing with an...

To launch a unit study of the concept of diversity in World Literature, class members compare Chinua Achebe's essay, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" and Richard Rodriguez's essay, "The Chinese in All of...

Maybe you're studying the life cycle of a bird, or maybe you're doing an author study in language arts. Whatever the case may be, use a set of bulletin board ideas any time of the year. Tailor the provided ideas to make them your...

The interpretation of a poem often lies in the mind of its reader, especially when reading the tone. Focus on author's word choice, middle schoolers read four different poems and briefly state a perceived tone for each, along with the...

The beauty of a poem is lost without an understanding of its tone. Middle schoolers connect author's purpose and word choice to four poems in a literary analysis activity, which prompts them to note each poem's tone and meaning.

Discern the tone in four selected poems with a straightforward assignment. Junior high readers analyze the authors' word choice and text structure to define a tone for each poem, as well as each poem's meaning.

Youngsters are more likely to eat something if they've worked hard to make it! Plan a cooking class with an e-booklet from Julie Negrin, author of Easy Meals to Cook With Kids. It includes what you should consider about your...

A short story is only as strong as its characters, development, and conflicts. Encourage the young authors in your class to plan their stories based on the elements of narrative writing, all provided in brainstorming graphic organizers.

Only one thing can compare to the whimsy of Dr. Seuss: a child's imagination. Pair the bouncing narrative of a Dr. Seuss book with your learner's illustrations in a fun reading activity. As you read a selected passage, your class draws...

Enhance narrative writing instruction with engaging and interactive planning pages. Eight lessons take authors through the process of writing a narrative story, two lessons prompt writers to create a personal narrative, and a...

Get the bat facts with a short nonfiction reading passage. After reading the passage, readers respond to questions that focus on main idea, inferencing, vocabulary in context, and author's purpose.

Break down the parts of argumentative writing with a critical thinking activity. High schoolers read an article of your (or their choice), and use a graphic organizer to delineate the ways the author structures his or her arguments.

Tell me what you really think. The class reviews articles related to wind energy to see how the author uses words, phrases, and images to sway the reader. Through a class discussion, individuals share their feelings from the media...

Create a technical report explaining the components of a medical plan through a function. The project-based learning activity gives a medical insurance scenario that young mathematicians model using piecewise functions. Their analyses...