"Plot the plot" of "The Adventures of the Speckled Band" with your young readers. Take a few days to read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story as a class or in pairs, having learners write down what they consider to be the most important...

Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...

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...

As part of their reading of Leslie Marmon Silko's "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit," class members analyze how the author develops her narrative through dialogue, description, and multiple plot lines.

Explore literature through the completion of reading comprehension worksheets in class. After reading the classic book, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, middle schoolers review each chapter by completing study questions and story webs....

Review story elements with your class. They will use examples from a story to develop critical-thinking questions. Then they use a graphic organizer to describe the setting, character, and plot of the story, focusing on how they...

Enjoy the thrill of the movies with this ESL activity! Not only can learners talk about their favorite films, but in creating riddles about their chosen movies, they can practice the skills of context clues and deductive reasoning. This...

Talk about technology in the classroom. This plan has all the resources needed to create a non-linear or branching story. Included is a step-by-step tutorial that walks middle schoolers through the project description, a model of a...

Young writers generate descriptive words. They use pictures of various landscapes (from books, magazines, or the Internet) and complete a story pyramid. The pyramid (included here) asks to describe the main character, the setting, and...

Kevin Henkes has composed a series of books in which Lilly the mouse is a main character. Third graders use illustrations and key details as they compare and contrast the books, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse and another...

Students explore statistics by completing a graphing activity. In this data analysis lesson, students define a list of mathematical vocabulary terms before unpacking a box of raisins. Students utilize the raisins to plot data on a line...

Interested in a special folktale to read with your class? Then this activity might be for you. Readers will build an understanding of the food chain while creating a storyboard that includes the characters, setting, and plot of the...

After your class has completed The Cay by Theodore Taylor, assess understanding of the plot. First, model how to fill out a plot line for your class. Next, have class members fill in the plot of The Cay on the provided story map. Invite...

Delve into a Bengali folktale with a series of reading comprehension activities. Before kids read The Ghost Catcher, they discuss the concept of reflections and mirrors. They then answer comprehension questions about the characters and...

Young scholars explore number sense by completing math function problems in class. In this integers instructional activity, students define integers and practice plotting them on a number line. Young scholars utilize math functions such...

Students select a short story and apply various literary elements they have used throughout the year. They deconstruct a short story according to plot, setting, characterization, and theme. Students create a PowerPoint.

Why does Scout fear Boo? Why does George kill Lennie? Whether in literature or life, helping young learners recognize the relationship between actions and consequences is an important lesson. Have your class match twelve observable...

Now these are learning activities full of fun, art, and cultural exploration. Kids consider the art of storytelling through comic book images. They then look at the Tale of Genji as it was written in the 11th century. They discuss...

Few aspects of life make better fodder for a comedic play than politics. A study guide introduces George Bernard's Shaw comedy Arms and the Man. Along with summaries of each scene and brief biographies of the main characters, two lesson...

In this graphing and analyzing activity, 9th graders first state if each graph represents a linear or nonlinear relationship. Second, they create a difference table for each set of data presented and determine whether it represents a...

Students look at the role of characters in a story. In this character instructional activity, students discuss how different types of characters change the plot of the story. They see how storytellers use their body, face, and voice to...

Young scholars find coordinate points on a grid and create a line graph with those points. This lesson should ideally be used during a unit on various types of graphs. They make and use coordinate systems to specify locations and to...

Money can't buy happiness, but it can put food on the table and pay the bills. The first of a five-lesson unit teaches pupils about the unemployment rate in 1963 and its relationship with the March on Washington. They learn how to create...