Penguin Books
Teacher’s Guide: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
A 10-page guide to John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men includes a brief plot summary, information about preparing readers for the language in the novel, pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading questions, essay prompts, and project...
Curated OER
Prejudice and Discrimination
How do we break the habit of prejudice? The activities in this packet are designed to promote awareness, harmony, and acceptance. Participants identify their stereotypic beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, reflect to discover the sources...
Novelinks
Zach’s Lie: Guided Imagery
Close your eyes and picture a time where you decided to tell the truth to someone. What were you wearing? How did you feel? Such prompts begin a guided imagery activity for Zach's Lie. Directions for creating an environment conducive to...
Curated OER
Can You Find It?
Plan a Parts of a Book scavenger hunt. Begin by giving your young adventurers a book, and asking them to find the title, author, illustrator, and table of contents. After a discussion of the purpose of each of these items, class members...
Curated OER
Pourquoi Tales
Lead a web search for information on writers and discuss the craft of purposeful writing as a class. Your students investigate "pourquoi tales" which are "why" stories. and then write their own examples of pourquoi stories to share in a...
Reed Novel Studies
Sounder: Novel Study
Only one character receives a name in William H. Armstrong's novel, Sounder—the dog! With the novel study, scholars explore the author's purpose in the unusual decision. They also write similes, answer comprehension and analysis...
California Education Partners
Tuck Everlasting
An assessment takes a close look at the story, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, and tests writing abilities. Over the course of two days, scholars read an excerpt, answer questions on a worksheet pertaining to the author's purpose...
American Chemical Society
Energy Foundations
Only 10 percent of an incandescent bulb's energy is used to create light; the remaining 90 percent is heat. In the unit of activities, young chemists examine energy through hands-on activities, videos, discussions, and readings. Scholars...
Curated OER
The Night Before Thanksgiving
Natasha Wing's story The Night Before Thanksgiving is a great way to incorporate rhyme and literature into the Thanksgiving season. Learners make text-to-self connections, recall main events, and choose post-reading activities from an...
Curated OER
Practice Book O
Whether you need resources for reading comprehension, literary analysis, phonics, vocabulary, or text features, an extensive packet of worksheets is sure to fit your needs. Based on a fifth-grade curriculum but applicable to any level of...
Great Schools
Letter of Complaint
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...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Reading Literature - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce’s short story, is used to model how structural moves, the decisions an author makes about setting, point of view, time order, etc., can be examined to reveal an author’s purpose. Groups...
Curated OER
Awesome authors (Elementary, Reading/Writing)
Fifth graders use technology to research and collect data. They develop awareness and appreciation of authors and genres. They organize information for presentation.
Teaching Oasis
Gingerbread Baby Lesson Plan Guide
Reinforce reading comprehension and story mapping skills with the help from a story, Gingerbread Baby by Jen Brett. Individuals discover new vocabulary, make predictions, retell main events, respond to reading using a graphic organizer,...
K20 LEARN
The K20 Chronicle, Lesson 1: What Makes a Good Article?
Good news articles are engaging, informative, and often compelling. In the first lesson of the four-part series, young journalists analyze and evaluate news stories about former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom. They learn about the...
Dream of a Nation
Creating Awareness through Action Oriented Writing and Research
Middle schoolers aren't too young to feel strongly about politics, social issues, consumer rights, or environmental problems. Demonstrate the first steps toward social change with a project about action-oriented writing. Eighth graders...
Novelinks
Touching Spirit Bear: Question Answer Response Strategy
What types of questions help readers learn the most? Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders learn how to ask four types of questions from the Question Answer Response (QAR) reading strategy to help grow their comprehension of Touching Spirit...
Autism Fitness
Top 8 Exercises for Autism Fitness
Create an inclusive physical education program with help from eight exercises designed to met of the needs of children with autism. Activities include ball work, hurdles, bear crawls, resistance bands, star jumps, and the Scramble.
Novelinks
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle: Magic Square Vocabulary
After reading chapter one of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, take part in a magic square vocabulary activity in which scholars match the term with its definition and insert its corresponding number in to the magic square...
Illustrative Mathematics
Logistic Growth Model, Abstract Version
Here learners get to flex some serious algebraic muscles through an investigation of logistic growth. The properties of the constant terms in the logistic growth formula are unraveled in a short but content-dense activity. Moving...
Curated OER
Journey to Topaz: Directed Reading Thinking Activity
Have you used the directed reading thinking activity in your classroom? Doubling as either a prereading strategy, or a during reading strategy, it helps readers connect the historical background of the text to the text itself. As the...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Exploring Text with the iMovie Application
Get your class going on one of the final assessments for a unit on short stories by introducing iMovie and its main features. In this tenth instructional activity in a series of fourteen, pupils take some time to explore iMovie before...
Hampton-Brown
From "First Crossing"
Young scholars look closely at four tales taken from the collection of short stories, First Crossing edited by Donald R. Galloby. While examining the life of four teenagers and the lives they lead as U.S. immigrants, your enthusiastic...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit 2 Assessment: Analyzing the Author’s Point of View: Relief Camps
We're halfway there ... what a relief! Scholars read an excerpt from a primary source about the relief camps associated with the1906 San Francisco earthquake. Next, they complete a mid-unit assessment, answering short-answer and...