Are your scholars reading Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee? If so, use this textual analysis packet and lesson guide to drive deeper thinking about the characters, create personal connections, and apply historical...

Have you ever looked for a new way to teach an old concept? Scholars thinking about the rising action of a story in a whole new perspective. However, Book Report Alternative: Rewind the Plot! challenges readers and allows for much...

Students read and discuss the "fractured" fairy tale "The Stinky Cheese Man". They imagine that they are in the fairy tale and write a letter of complaint concerning the Cheese Man and how he stinks up the town.

Students analyze lyrics of their favorite songs as examples of alliteration, metaphor, Onomatopoeia, personification, rhyme, and simile to determine the purpose of these devices in poetry. They use their analysis to create a presentation...

Read aloud to your class the fable "The Lion and the Mouse" as you explore characters' choices and the effects they have on a story. Apply what is discussed to finding a theme of the chapter "Not Giving Up" from The Wizard of...

Should Charlie undergo an operation to increase his intelligence? A mini-lesson for a unit on Daniel Keyes novel Flowers for Algernon uses a RAFT activity, which prompts learners to write a letter to Charlie's doctors explaining why they...

After watching part of a Club Write Kids video and discussing the editing process, each group of learners writes a letter to a favorite author. They ask for a copy of a page of manuscript that has gone through the editing process. Prior...

Help your class listen and respond to a fictional story by creating a story structure mobile illustrating the main characters, setting, plot, problem, story events, and solution. Using a coat hanger, they will create an artistic element...

Learners use a scene from a book and make it come alive in movie clips.

Primary readers investigate several comprehension skills in the ten lessons of this unit. Forming opinions about stories, comparing stories to each other, using Venn Diagrams, and applying the ideas from a story to real life situations...

Practice using the Turn the Question Around (TQA) method to answer reading comprehension questions based on short narrative paragraphs. Instructions and materials are included for direct, guided, and independent instruction. Responses...

After listening to the story, The Best Part of Me, learners will identify a positive physical feature of themselves, and create a descriptive poem about their favorite feature. Photographs are taken, and a nice final draft of the poem is...

Young scholars analyze "To Build a Fire" by Jack London and "The Open boat" by Stephen Crane. They write an essay in which they compare and contrast the narrators and plots in each story.

Students examine their own history to expand how they examine the world. They research being a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. They also examine Muslim culture.

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is famous, in part, because it established a uniquely American form of humor. For this famous story, Mark Twain combines the tall-tale, the dialect story, and satire. Here is a resource...

Increased reading comprehension begins with decoding and automatically recognizing words, which is the focus of this instruction. Using their choice of six different Winnie the Pooh stories, partners practice a variety of strategies...

Learners create and publish a newspaper that reflects and explains pioneer and medieval societies. They become newspaper writers for a specific time period. They adopt a holistic approach to exploring community life in medieval and...

While reading the book Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls, the class ties together the core reading objectives, which are making predictions, comprehending new information, reading for author's purpose, independence in reading,...

Have your class explore the art of storytelling through this lesson on fairy tales and folktales. Learners interact with a variety of fairy tales and folktales. They practice telling stories out loud as well as writing their own. This...

Students read a given play. They choose the key scenes from the play and write a narration to carry the plot line between those scenes. They create a comic book that depicts these key scenes, complete with pictures and text balloons.

Use a Mad-Libs like activity to create modern poetry! Writers will identify different words and their parts of speech and study "The Red Wheelbarrow" by Williams Carlos Williams. Then, use the sheets attached to craft your own poem! An...

Scholars of all ages can use the various tools of technology to construct and illustrate a story. Utilizing this resource, learners work with a partner to brainstorm and draft a story based on personal experience. They use computer...

Figurative language is the focus in the book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia. After reading Peggy Parish's book, class members dramatize idioms from the text, using dramatic strategies such as characterization, exaggeration, and...

Examine the fables of Aesop with your class. Pupils identify the morals of fables and role-play a scene from their favorite fable of Aesop. Additionally, they compose letters to a favorite character in the fable. Learners role-play again...