What's this all about? Scholars learn the importance of summarizing skills using a summary writing graphic organizer. They work with an elbow partner to discuss summaries and complete the organizer using Middle Ages Excerpt 1. Learners...

What is the big idea? Scholars use Middle Ages Excerpt 2 to complete a summary graphic organizer. They then use the information from the organizer to write a summary of the text on lined paper. Learners share summaries with the class.

Surviving winter. Pupils begin reading on page 18 of The Inuit Thought of It: Amazing Arctic Inventions and sketch how the people used animal skin clothing to survive the winter. Readers complete a main idea graphic organizer...

How does one use a graphic organizer to plan writing? Introduce your writers to different types of graphic organizers by dividing the class into groups and assigning each group a particular organizer. Then, as they research chocolate...

Walk through the pictures to understand the text. Scholars analyze The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth by taking a book walk and looking at the pictures. They then do a first read of Life before Philo to...

Scholars use the Narrative Structure graphic organizer to analyze the structure of the smaller stories within To Kill a Mockingbird. They talk with a partner to discuss how the structure adds meaning.

Have you ever heard someone say the movie is not like the book? Scholars complete a mid-unit assessment to compare scenes from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird to the movie version. The assessment contains short answers, multiple choice,...

Breaking barriers is not an easy thing to do. Scholars read a section in Promises to Keep and summarize how Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball. They write the gist of the passage in their journals and then complete...

In instructional activity 13 of this unit on colonial trade, young researchers learn about apprentices as they prepare to write help-wanted ads for the specific trade they have been researching. To begin, the class listens closely as the...

As a summative assessment for this unit on colonial trade, fourth graders listen to and read informational texts in order to demonstrate their ability to take notes, write summaries, and draw connections. Young scholars first listen as...

Acquaint your class with informational text through a close reading. First, examine a couple of pages together, looking at text features and content. The whole class focuses on marking down a brief summary of each paragraph before...

Pupils explore the narrative structure of a piece of literary text, mapping out the plot structure of the Greek myth "Pyramus and Thisbe." Next, they use their completed graphic organizers to write story summaries.

Then and now. Scholars complete an end of unit assessment covering The Inuit Thought of It by comparing past and modern day life for the Inuit. They complete a main idea graphic organizer, analyze key terms, and write a summary...

Scholars take a close look at "The Vietnam Wars." They answer questions and discuss in groups to conclude that the author respects the Vietnamese. They participate in a modified jigsaw discussion and end the exercise with a quick writing...

Students explore language arts by completing a graphic organizer in class. For this story structure lesson, students read the classic tale "The Three Little Pigs" and discuss the main characters, conflict and setting. Students complete a...

Pupils produce paragraphs with planning and precision with the four-square writing method, which allows learners to organize the topic, supporting, and summary sentences of their paragraphs. 

Second graders read a book. In this note taking lesson plan, 2nd graders read a book about pumpkins and take notes together. Students write a summary about pumpkins using the information from their notes.

Students read the story Jalapeno Bagels and then write a summary about it. In this summary lesson plan, students retell the story as if someone else has not read the story.

Fifth graders brainstorm a variety of topics for writing. As a class, learners create four types of graphic organizers on selected topics. They discuss how to use graphic organizer in constructing a written paragraph.

Learners research the adaptations of desert animals and build their research skills. For this the adaptations of desert animals lesson, young scholars describe major factors that desert animals have on their habitat. Learners...

Your budding journalists need to understand the five W's for writing a news story. They read a story, complete several graphic organizers to help them organize and write their article, and then use a self-assessment worksheet to edit and...

Second graders investigate historic Americans by researching George Washington Carver. In this famous American biography lesson, 2nd graders complete graphic organizers about George Washington Carver's life while researching the...

Students explore four Native American tribes from Nevada. For this Native American history lesson, students identify and generate important corresponding attributes of the Southern Paiute, Northern Paiute, Washoe, and Western Shoshone...