University of North Carolina
Application Essays
There's a lot riding on good writing! Often, an application essay is the difference between acceptance and rejection. As part of a series on specific writing assignments and contexts, a handout helps scholars craft the perfect personal...
K12 Reader
What's the Forecast?
Rain gauges, thermometers, and wind vanes. After reading a short article about weather forecasting, readers identify the tools meteorologists use to predict the weather.
Have Fun Teaching
Compare and Contrast (3)
Sometimes the way a topic is presented in fiction can be very different from how it is in reality. Compare and contrast a topic from both a fiction and nonfiction source with a graphic organizer that prepares kids to write about what...
Curated OER
Writing to Learn History: Annotations and Mini-Writes
Students use their critical thinking skills to write about historical events. In this historical perspectives instructional activity, students read documents about historical events and make annotations and marginal notes. Students then...
California Education Partners
Grapes of Wrath
To demonstrate their ability to comprehend complex text, individuals analyze the details, syntax, and diction John Steinbeck uses in a passage from The Grapes of Wrath to reveal the develop and evolution of Mae's character.
California Education Partners
Hope Despair Memory
Elie Wiesel's "Hope, Despair and Memory" provides ninth graders an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to analyze complex text. Individuals craft an essay that draws evidence from the text of the speech to show how Wiesel develops...
California Education Partners
Women
Alice Walker's poem "Women" provides ninth graders the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to identify how a writer's choice of syntax and diction contribute to the development of the theme of the work.
Louisiana Department of Education
Out of the Dust
The Grapes of Wrath may be the most famous novel set during the Dust Bowl, but what other stories cover the same time? The unit focuses on the Karen Hesse novel Out of the Dust. Learners keep a timeline of the Dust Bowl, maintain a...
New York State Education Department
TASC Transition Curriculum: Workshop 10
How have educational standards evolved? Educators of adults examine expectations in the 10th workshop out of 15 to better determine how standards have grown. Participants respond to a variety of sample questions to determine how they...
Southern Poverty Law Center
Evaluating Reliable Sources
A lesson plan instills the importance of locating reliable sources. Scholars are challenged to locate digital sources, analyze their reliability, search for any bias, and identify frequently found problems that make a source unusable.
Curated OER
Sippin' on Smoothies
Why is calcium good for the body? Where is it stored? Young chefs discover the importance of calcium and review a list of foods that are rich in the material. They then make delicious smoothies high in calcium! Teaching kids how to...
Curated OER
The Rumpelstiltskin Story
Why didn't Rapunzel's hair stop growing? Why did it take the fairy godmother so long to intervene in Cinderella's affairs? Young writers consider unanswered questions like these and compose news articles investigating the true...
Curated OER
Nonfiction Books: Table of Contents and Index
How do you find what you're looking for when reading a nonfiction book? Even first graders can learn how to use a table of contents and an index. They use the provided images of each to locate information and answer nine questions.
For the Teachers
Fact vs. Opinion
Many informational texts are written as factual, but can your learners determine when an opinion is presented as fact? Have your kids read several articles on the same topic and record the statements that contain either facts or...
Denver Art Museum
Tea Gathering Quick-Write
Japanese tea gatherings are the inspiration for a great lesson. Learners are provided with an image of a tea caddy made for thick tea and asked to describe what they notice and what that might mean. This leads into a larger lesson about...
Curated OER
What Was That All About?
Through direct instruction, the teacher demonstrates how to identify the main idea and supporting details of a text when creating a summary. As a class, read a paragraph, highlighting relevant information and crossing out extraneous...
Cleburne Independent School District
Grade 6 English Language Arts and Readiness: Persuasive
What is the best way to compare and contrast viewpoints on the same topic? A persuasive writing unit plan addresses targeted skills, vocabulary, instructional strategies, and suggested resources that would be perfect for developing writers.
101 Questions
Boat in the River
Ever feel like you're headed up the down escalator? Don't let your pupils get stuck in that rut! Practice writing equations to solve a problem using an engaging lesson. A video presents information that allows learners to determine how...
University of North Carolina
Music
Music is a universal pleasure, but writing about it can be a little trickier. An informative handout discusses common types of music writing assignments that one might encounter in a college-level course. Individuals read about musical...
Curated OER
Pizza Biography
A biography writing lesson plan with a tasty twist! Kids create a "visual biography" in which each pizza slice represents a paragraph, and toppings represent supporting details. They learn research techniques, note-taking skills, and how...
Curated OER
Author's Purpose
Readers identify the author's purpose. First, they read a passage and utilize details from the piece to determine the author's purpose. Then they will explain how they arrived at their conclusion. Links to materials are provided.
Library of Congress
The Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment
How did the Emancipation Proclamation lead to the Thirteenth Amendment? Middle schoolers analyze primary source documents including the text of the Emancipation Proclamation, political cartoons, photographs, and prints to understand...
K5 Learning
Authors Tell Different Stories
The story of Cinderella is a popular one! So much so, there are multiple versions of the story being told around the world. With this collection of activities your young readers receive background information about two versions...
Fabius-Pompey School District
Paired Passage Practice and the Extended Response Question
How do pupils relate paired passages to each other? Here's a resource that helps! The lesson includes a short story and a poem as a set of paired reading passages, followed by some analysis questions. It also includes an essay template...