Curated OER
Story Pyramid and Summary
Students read a short selection of a story individually or as a class. On their own, they create a story pyramid for the selection and write a one page summary. They use text from the story for their supporting details. To end the...
Curated OER
Teaching Juveniles How to Plan for The Future
Students in a special education class discover ways to effectively plan for the future. In groups, they research the programs and services available to them to discover the opportunities that await them. They read different sections of...
Curated OER
The Island of the Skog
"Students read "The Island of the Skog." Prior to reading, students observe the book cover, predict the events of the story, and discuss what a skog may look like. Students make footprints in play dough and observe the differences...
Curated OER
“THE LORAX” by Dr. Seuss
Few children's books convey the message of conservation as well as Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. Read the story aloud, emphasizing the interconnectedness of plants and animals in an ecosystem and discussing different ways people can help...
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Science Fair Frenzy
Pupils examine the steps for developing science fair projects. They visit stations where they examine posters, books, and paper that describe how to research and design a science fair project. Additionally, they take notes on how to...
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Express Yourself Lesson Seed 14: Dedication
Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....
Avi Writer
Hard Gold: Teaching Guide
Designed for Hard Gold, a novel in Avi's I Witness series, this teaching guide includes a summary of the story and information about the writer as well as chapter-by-chapter vocabulary lists, text-based reading questions,...
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Lesson Ideas for Comparing and Contrasting Content
Here are three lesson ideas to help students learn how to compare and contrast information in any content area
West Jefferson High School
The Novel — Honor
For classes tackling To Kill a Mockingbird, this lesson plan sets readers up for discussions or essay writing with questions and prompts. The prompts encourage individuals to explore beyond the novel itself, looking at...
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James and the Giant Peach Plot Analysis
It's all about the plot, main events, and story mapping with this lesson. As the class reads the novel James and the Giant Peach, they create an excitement graph that actually charts key events and moments of excitement. After...
Curated OER
Read and Review
Students create presentations to discuss a book they've read using a video format. In this reading and speech lesson, students video tape a presentation about a book they've written a summary for. Students then produce an in-house...
Curated OER
Keep It Short!
Students examine the process of summarizing text. They participate in a class discussion, and read an assigned passage from their textbook, highlighting the main points of the text. Students then write a short summary of their...
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Children's Books
Middle schoolers use their personal experiences to create students's books for younger middle schoolers on topics to which they can relate. Students observe a guest speaker who talks about different formats of middle schoolers's books...
Curated OER
Mapping Out A Summary
Students summarize a selected piece of fiction text. After reviewing the correct way to read silently, students read a chapter in the novel they are currently reading. They write a chapter summary using a story map and the process...
Curated OER
Let's Create a Picture
Students practice using visualization to aid in their reading comprehension. After a read aloud of a selected story, students write a brief summary of the plot accompanied by an illustration of the characters they have visualized.
Curated OER
It's A Challenge!
Learners write a book review stating challenges the character faced and if they enjoyed the book. In this language arts lesson plan, students fill out a worksheet provided.
Curated OER
Pigs: A Visual Splendor
Third graders practice using visualization to aid in their reading comprehension. After a reading a chapter from the book "Charlotte's Web," students write a brief summary of the plot using their visualizations, aided by reading...
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Glimpses of Japan: Picture books are an avenue to geographical knowledge
Student gains insight into the culture of Japan. They articulate the main ideas and supporting details, also they create a "glimpse of Japan" with an illustrated and written summary of the main idea and four supporting details from the...
Curated OER
Children's Literature Across the Curriculum Ideas-How Dogs Really Work!
Students read How Dogs Really Work! by Alan Snow. They complete a variety of cross-curricular activities surrounding the study of dogs as pets. Included are reading, art, math, science, writing, social studies, and library connections.
Curated OER
Coming To America
Students investigate the history of America with the help of children's literature. The story is structured as a timeline that begins at the time of Columbus and progresses to the present. The teacher reads the story with the class and...
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Map It Out
Explore how illustrations add to a story. Young learners will look at picture books to see how the pictures tell the story. They create illustrations to go with a chosen story, and then flip the activity so they have to write a story to...
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Growing Vegetable Soup
Learners use children's literature in order to think about the concept of creating a garden. This is done through conducting simple research about types of plants that could be grown in the area and how to care for them. Then the garden...
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Only the Facts
Practice the strategy of summarizing to gain meaning and knowledge from an informational text. Young readers highlight supporting details and main ideas, and then they use this to summarize two articles: "The Great Quake" and "What...
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Summarize This!
Students explore how to summarize a reading passage. They read non-fiction books. Students use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the two animals they read about. They write a summary using the information in their Venn Diagram.