It is an out-of-body experience. Scholars take a look at the sidebars outside the body of the text in The Exterminator. They discuss the purpose of this type of text feature and work to determine the gist. Learners write unfamiliar...

Which side are you on? Scholars watch a video of John Stossel discussing the use of DDT pesticide. Learners talk about the purpose of the video and the speaker's argument and then complete a Tracing an Argument graphic organizer while...

Where did the falcons go? Scholars read the article Welcome Back which describes the disappearance of falcons due to the use of pesticides. During a second read, learners annotate the text by marking unfamiliar words and facts about...

Welcome to Frightful's Mountain. The teacher introduces scholars to the text Frightful’s Mountain by reading the first chapter aloud. Learners then talk with a partner about the text. The instructor models answering focus questions...

Half and half. Split the class in half to gain a full understanding of sidebars. Pupils work in groups to discuss sidebars in text. Half of the groups read Seriously Sick, and the other half reads Killer Genes. They read using...

What is your interpretation? Scholars look at their Cascading Consequences Charts and interpret the information they have gathered. Learners match claims with evidence and then watch a video. At the end, they carry out a fishbowl...

It's all in the presentation. Readers take a look at author's presentation in the article Rachel Carson: Sounding the Alarm on Pollution. Scholars work together to complete a Comparing and Contrasting Authors’ Presentation graphic...

In many places in the world, people go to great lengths to get books to read. This beginning-of-the-year activity uses pictures of people reading in extraordinary situations to stimulate effective listening and speaking using the...

Lesson 6 of this extensive unit finally has your class begin to work their way through specific articles from the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Before examining the rights actually detailed in the...

Continue work on the two-piece poem that compares two characters from Esperanza Rising. Give class members a few minutes to finish their drafts. After they have a complete product, model how to critique and edit the poems with one group....

Come up with a list of requirements for this expository essay on Esperanza's character in Esperanza Rising as a class and use the list to guide class writing. Here, learners will complete the first paragraph, discuss their notes for the...

Third graders continue to practice the close reading skills of capturing the gist and reading again for important details in the sixth lesson in a larger unit. This is a great beginning-of-the-year unit for establishing visible thinking...

The Incredible Book-Eating Boy is read aloud to young readers, and the story is discussed. Then, the lesson goes into how to build up one's reading stamina. The class brainstorms ways that they can build up their stamina such as: staying...

What was life like in colonial America? Follow this lesson and your pupils will find out what people in colonial times did for work and for fun. Ask learners to compare and contrast the two texts and explain what the reading helped them...

Improve class understanding of colonial times by reading an informational text and filling out the accompanying graphic organizer. Class members work with a partner to read, take notes, make inferences, and synthesize information.The...

Show your class how to read a map and decipher all of the markings and features. Start out by connecting maps to their homework from the night before and their current reading, in this case That Book Woman, and a related informational...