EngageNY
Practicing Listening and Reading Closely: The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address
Thanksgiving doesn't occur only once a year for the Haudenosaunee. Weave an instructional activity about reading closely with an inspiring message about eternal gratitude for all of the elements of creation into a unit on Native American...
EngageNY
Close Reading: The Introduction to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
As part of a group of lessons, your class will return to the primary text for this unit, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Key vocabulary as well as close reading strategies continue to be the focus skills; however, this lesson...
Curated OER
The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie: A Close Reading
Andrew Carnegie's "The Gospel of Wealth" provides high schoolers an opportunity to engage more complex text. After a close reading of the essay and an analysis of Carnegie's argument that the rich are superior because they earn money,...
Germantown School District
Close Reading World Religions: Islam
As part of a close reading activity, individuals respond to three questions and craft two short essays based on a passage about Islam, one of the world most widespread religion.
Teaching Tolerance
Social Media for Social Action
Engage in activism, not slacktivism! Scholars discuss social media and the Internet as tools for social change. Next, they engage in a close reading strategy called Thinking Notes as they read an article about social media activism.
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 1
Make a study of the First Amendment and its relationship to freedom. Pupils rewrite the amendment and discuss the central idea before focusing on a specific phrase. After discussing, class members write a journal entry about the included...
EngageNY
Reading Maps: Locating the Countries We Have Been Reading About
Show your class how to read a map and decipher all of the markings and features. Start out by connecting maps to their homework from the night before and their current reading, in this case That Book Woman, and a related informational...
Curated OER
Global News: The Changing Face of Reading
A current and engaging informational text with some superb scaffolding activities, this six paragraph article discusses the release of the iPad from Apple, eBooks, and the history of reading and writing materials. After reading the...
Minnesota Department of Natural Resoures
Getting to Know Trees
Celebrate the beauty of trees with a packet full of activities designed to help kindergarteners get to know about their leafy nature friends. Covering a variety of subjects, scholars go on a nature hike, read Shel Silverstein's The...
PBS
Why Should Women Vote? The Suffrage Question
An online interactive activity asks learners to analyze a group of documents related to the women's suffrage movement and then place the documents on a timeline. The results assess users understanding of the progression of the women's...
EngageNY
Getting Ready to Learn About Human Rights: Close Reading of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
Introduce young readers to informational texts with a well-designed, ready-to-use, and Common Core-aligned unit. Young readers learn a variety of skills while studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). As the first...
EngageNY
Close Reading: Unpacking Specific Articles of the UDHR
Lesson 6 of this extensive unit finally has your class begin to work their way through specific articles from the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Before examining the rights actually detailed in the...
EngageNY
Close Reading: Becoming Experts on Specific Articles of the UDHR
A continuation of the previous lesson, which is part of a larger group of lessons on human rights (see additional materials). Here, in Lesson 7, your class will explore more articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After...
National Park Service
Hibernation-Migration-Fascination
What's the difference between hibernation and a good nap? Find out with an engaging life science activity that compares the hibernation habits of grizzly bears and marmots. After learners read an informational passage about each mammal,...
Conneticut Department of Education
Instructional Strategies That Facilitate Learning Across Content Areas
Imagine 28 instructional strategies, appropriate for all subject areas and all grade levels. Directed Reading-Thinking Activities (DRTA), Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) activities, KWL charts, comparison matrixes, classification...
Curated OER
A Close Reading of Learned Hand's "I Am an American Day"
Judge Learned Hand's "Spirit of Liberty" speech delivered during the July, 1944 "I Am an American Day" celebration is the subject of a close reading activity that models for learners how to approach a dense, difficult text.
The New York Times
The Careful Reader: Teaching Critical Reading Skills with the New York Times
The 11 lessons in this educators' guide focus on using newspapers to develop critical reading skills in the content areas.
Chicago History Museum
Reading Artifacts
History detectives put their keen observation skills to the test as they closely examine artifacts. Drawing on visual and tactile clues, they formulate a theory about who done it, or in this case who made it, why, and for what...
Kids Voting USA
Kids Voting USA: K-2 Classroom Activities
Address both social studies and critical reading skills with a resource dedicated to the voting process, the American democracy, and the ability to evaluate information in order to develop a stance on an issue. Each themed activity...
Curated OER
Jim Murphy, The Great Fire - Grade 6
The Great Fire by Jim Murphy provides the text for a study of the Chicago fire of 1871. The plan is designed as a close reading activity so that all learners have the same background information require for writing. Richly detailed, the...
Curated OER
Do You Want to Be My Friend?
Learners participate in a variety of emergent and early-literacy activities based on a "friendship" theme. Learners listen to the book Do You Want to Be My Friend by Eric Carle, then echo read, choral read, and independently read...
EngageNY
Listening Closely and Taking Notes: Colonial Trade Podcast About the Wheelwright
Voices from the past. Young scholars listen to a podcast interview with a historical re-enactor as they continue their research in the eleventh instructional activity of this unit on colonial trade. Applying their close reading skills,...
EngageNY
Listening Closely and Taking Notes in Expert Groups: Colonial Trade Podcast
The twelfth instructional activity of this unit builds on the skills developed in the previous instructional activity, as fourth graders continue their quest to become experts on colonial trade by listening to interviews with historical...
EngageNY
Reading and Taking Notes on Colonial Trades
In the tenth instructional activity of this unit, young scholars learn to categorize information as they continue researching their colonial trade. During guided practice, the teacher models how to read informational text slowly while...