Historical events do not occur in a vacuum. Such is the case of the Dreyfus Affair, where the connection between Captain Alfred Dreyfus, Emile Zola, and Hannah Arendt is fused by the events of the early 20th century. The informative...

Learn the ins and outs of hurricanes through a series of lessons answering, "What is a hurricane? How does it travel? How is one formed, measured, and named?" Information is presented through informative text and images, while...

A puzzle isn't about the individual pieces, but how they work together. Scholars assemble a puzzle and discover missing pieces. They write a description of what they expect these pieces to look like, including as many details as...

The Namuhs have a lot to teach humans how idealized images presented in advertising can impact self-perception and self-worth. After brainstorming 10 traits the media sets as the perfect body, class members read a short story about the...

Students connect their lives to a story or nonfiction text. In this reading connections lesson plan, students make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections as they complete connections stems based on a story.

Learners discover the joy of reading a book through the teaching method of a read-aloud while interacting with the teacher by answering different questions. The lesson includes a sample of a read-aloud and the dialogue used with students...

How is Louisiana connected to the Holocaust? After reading The Diary of Anne Frank, eighth graders complete a research report about a survivor of the Holocaust who currently resides in Louisiana. Though the idea is a good way to...

Students investigate what they know about the Holocaust. In this historical perspectives instructional activity, students complete KWL charts about Hitler and the Holocaust and create found poems on the topic prior to reading Wiesel's...

Students examine the connection between the foods on the food pyramid and agricultural products. They identify the food groups, discuss foods from each group, complete two handouts, and construct a desktop food pyramid, placing foods in...

Have you used the directed reading thinking activity in your classroom? Doubling as either a prereading strategy, or a during reading strategy, it helps readers connect the historical background of the text to the text itself. As the...

Clarify, connect, evaluate, predict, question. Laminate and display these colorful posers about the classroom to remind readers of the five basic strategies for comprehending all sorts of text. 

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart can present challenges even for experienced readers. Here’s a schedule and corresponding guide that will help readers focus on and record important events. The packet includes fact-based, interpretative,...

Get your class going on one of the final assessments for a unit on short stories by introducing iMovie and its main features. In this tenth lesson in a series of fourteen, pupils take some time to explore iMovie before conducting an...

We need the help of your history detectives! After giving them a set of questions to answer, reading groups must create their own timeline of the events. Then, as a class, have each group present their timelines. What is different? Why...

After each of three viewings of a 45-second video, aspiring writers employ vivid adjectives and precise, strong verbs to "show, don't tell." First they compose a single sentence, then three, and finally a five-sentence paragraph. Repeat...

Join a father and his son as they explore an isolated location off the coast of Australia in the children's book Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker. Engage young learners in reading this fun story with this series of...

Upper elementary and middle schoolers recognize symbols that influence the choices that we make consciously or unconsciously in everyday life. They look at the symbols and choices that others make. They identify and apply knowledge of...

Beginning writers practice writing and reading from left to right using green and red dots. You'll need notecards with a green dot on the left side and a red dot on the right side. Do your learners understand that print moves from left...

Students develop skills in making nutritionally-sound food choices. Keeping a food diary, they analyze their food intake using the food pyramid as a guide. Students identify and explain the relationship of nutrition to personal health...

Introduce your learners to the concept of a double-entry journal. Talk about how to connect with the text and model an example for them. Using whatever literature you are working with, have scholars choose a quote and make their own...

With the Common Core State Standards' growing focus on informational text, it's the perfect time to showcase this PowerPoint to your team of teachers. It's 59 slides focus on seven best practice structures: reading-as-thinking,...

Build upon linear functions to learn about quadratics. The lesson introduces the concept of zeros for quadratic functions and makes the connection to the linear factors of the function. It presents quadratics in both graphical and...

Primary learners complete pre reading, writing, during reading, and interdisciplinary activities for the book First Day of School. They will  complete journal entries, answer short answer questions, have discussions, and much...

Useful for literary analysis, citing textual evidence, or summary skills, this lesson about the Kumeyaay Indians would be a good addition to your language arts class. Middle schoolers read novels and summarize the literature in their own...