Really Good Stuff
Nonfiction Text Features Poster Set
Identifying nonfiction text features is a skill students can take to any subject. A packet of posters demonstrate different text features that learners would encounter in a textbook or informational article, encouraging pupils to think...
Penguin Books
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Young Readers Edition
As the saying goes, you are what you eat. A useful set of lesson plans encourage young readers to take a second look at their eating habits. Pre- and post-reading questions bring in reflective writing and discussion while extension...
Tech Know Teaching
5th Grade Constructed Response Question
New to constructed response question worksheets? Here's a model that demonstrates how to construct questions that require readers to interpret graphics found in informational text.
EngageNY
Mid-Unit 2 Assessment: Inferring About the Silversmith Trade in Colonial Times
The seventh lesson plan in this unit on colonial trade assesses fourth graders' ability to use details from an informational text to make inferences and create a piece of informative writing. The included assessment begins with learners...
Odell Education
Reading Closely For Textual Details: Grade 8
Only a thorough understanding of history can save us from repeating it. Practice close reading skills with an eighth grade unit that focuses on 19th century America, including European immigration into Ellis Island and Frederick...
Curated OER
Comprehension: Create a Summary from an Expository Text
Children can learn to analyze expository or informational texts at nearly any age. This scaffolded and scripted resource provides teachers with the support needed to facilitate a thoughtful lesson plan on summarizing informational text...
Washington Township Public Schools
Using Paired Text
Paired reading passages frequently appear on standardized exams, but finding text sets to use in the classroom is sometimes a challenge. A lesson plan on using paired texts includes a selection of passages and a graphic organizer for...
University of Delaware
Constructing Text-Based Arguments About Social Issues
Eighth graders take a stand on a variety of controversial topics with a lesson on argumentative writing. As they view an informative presentation and work with collaborative groups, they decide which side of each argument they want to...
Curated OER
Nonfiction Text Features
Identify features of a nonfiction article in this language arts lesson. Middle schoolers apply comprehension strategies as they read the parts of the article, and analyze the author's key points. Additionally, they examine information in...
Hood River County School District
Text Structure: Features and Organization
Teach learners how to interact with both fiction and non-fiction text with a packet of activities and worksheets. After looking over text structure and the difference in text features between different types of writing, readers analyze...
Odell Education
Reading Closely for Textual Details: Grade 7
Enhance the reading experience with a set of lessons designed to improve textual analysis. Seventh graders use guiding questions to read both informational text and literature closely in the first part of the unit. Next, they work on...
Curated OER
Teach Text Features & Read Nonfiction
Elementary schoolers examine the components of reading nonfiction. They use think-alouds to help them complete reading the selected sections. They also identify text features as they read.
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment, Part 1: Text-Dependent Questions and Storyboard Draft: “You Can Do a Graphic Novel” Excerpt
Eyes on the finish line. Serving as the first part of the end of unit assessment, learners answer questions based on a text about how to write a graphic novel. Using what they've learned, they then create a storyboard about the invention...
EngageNY
Creating a Graphic Novelette and Peer Critique: Glossary, Citations, and Table of Contents
A, B, C ... let's alphabetize to get organized! Using the informative resource, scholars create an alphabetized glossary of key words for their graphic novelettes. Additionally, they create a table of contents and citations page.
EngageNY
Summarizing Notes: Planning a Graphic Novelette Part 1: The Invention of Television
What's the story? Learners create the first of four storyboards about the invention of the television, incorporating narrative techniques and descriptive details. Next, they offer and receive feedback by participating in a peer critique...
Lerner Publishing
Meet the Dinosaurs
Take your class of youngsters on a prehistoric adventure with this four-lesson series on dinosaurs. Accompanying the Meet the Dinosaurs books by Don Lessem, these lessons engage children in writing their own dinosaur books, making...
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment: On-Demand Informational Paragraph About How the Poison Dart Frog Survives
A final assessment marks the end of a unit that takes a close look at a variety of informational texts all about frogs. A graphic organizer aides scholars in planning an accordion paragraph using their recorder forms from previous...
Lakeshorelearning
Read and Write about It
Reading informational text is a skill that transcends subjects and grade levels. Practice reading about different topics in various formats with a language arts lesson that includes opportunities for writing and research as well.
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension: History of the Periodic Table
Although the article that launches this lesson is about the history of the Periodic Table, the objective is reading comprehension. Using the eight-page informational text, learners answer five comprehension questions and craft one essay....
California Education Partners
Follow the Water by Arthur Dorros
Assess scholars' reading and writing capabilities with an exam that challenges learners to respond to an informative text. Through note-taking and peer discussion, pupils analyze a passage from the story, Follow the Water from Brook to...
Curated OER
Tunes for Bears to Dance to: Graphic Organizer Strategy
"What are Henry's options?" "What do you think Henry will do?" To better understand the central conflict for the main character in Robert Cormier's Tunes for Bears to Dance to, class members engage in a compare-and-contrast activity that...
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment, Part 1: Drafting Body Paragraphs of an Essay to Inform
Anybody can write a body paragraph! Pupils analyze the development of ideas in a body paragraph from a model essay. Next, using what they've learned, they draft the body paragraphs of their My Rule to Live By informative essay.
California Education Partners
Quest for Tree Kangaroo
A three-day assessment challenges scholars to read a passage from an informational text then complete two activities that lead to a writing assignment. Day one and two begin as readers independently read a passage and tag the most...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment: Comparing and Contrasting Two Texts: Simulated Research
Shoo fly. Scholars read DDT Spray Scares Mosquitoes Away, Study Finds and You Think You Have It Tough? to complete a mid-unit assessment. The learners compare and contrast author presentation and conduct a credibility check on each...