“The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?” Prediction, verification, judgment, and extensions of thought are all part of a Directed ReadingThinking Activity (DRTA) developed for Measure for Measure. The rationale, assessments...

Introduce Romeo and Juliet with a KWHL strategy that asks learners to record what they know, what they want to learn, and how they will find this information on a large chart posted in the classroom. During the reading of Shakespeare’s...

Spruce up a class reading of the children's book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback with this fun series of activities. Starting with a list of reading comprehension questions and key vocabulary to address during a teacher...

Accompany a reading of First Come the Zebra written and illustrated by Lynne Barasch with a teacher's guide equipped with before reading, vocabulary, and after reading activities. Additional social studies,...

Introduce young learners to the read-aloud process with a short biographical passage about Ray Charles. After listening to the passage, class members respond to factual, inferential, and evaluative questions, and then create a timeline...

Students explore Visual Thinking Strategy as a way to examine art and photography. They discuss the strategies, and analyze and discuss photographs using the Visual Thinking Strategies techniques.

Young scholars explore reading comprehension by completing a graphic organizer. In this journalism technique lesson, students discuss important questions they can ask about stories they read to improve comprehension. Young scholars...

Second graders practice asking the 5 W questions by reading a Boxcar Children book.  In this journalism lesson, 2nd graders read a single story from the Boxcar Children series and answer the 5 W's about each specific chapter....

Fairy tales seem like quick, fun children's stories, but asking compelling questions about characters, plot elements, and literary themes can transform them into rich and complex tales. Use a series of eight lessons on Hans Christian...

A set of 14 primary sources provides background for a study of Lorraine Hansberry's drama, A Raisin in the Sun. Featured are images from stage productions of the play, white supremacy protests, a clip from a television interview, and...

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...

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,...

Third graders explore language arts by answering study questions about a book they read. In this reading summary lesson, 3rd graders read the book Verdi by Janell Cannon and identify the plot, characters and sequence of the story....

Before reading Chapter Six, "The Platinum-Blond Man" in Matilda, readers preview the illustration of Mrs. Wormwood dropping her plate of food, and think about what may have happened to cause the scene. After reading the chapter, class...

Students practice reading content material and develop strategies for better comprehension of the material they read on their own.

And then what happened? Class members engage in a series of activities that model for them how to read the story in a painting. Participants respond to questions that ask them to closely examine the elements in William Glackens'...

Color, light and shadow, the placement and size of objects. These are some of the tools artists used to tell their stories. Model for learners how to read a painting by closely examining these features. The richly detailed packet...

"The Hare and the Water," a Tanzanian folk tale, lends a global perspective to literary analysis. Learners spend the first two days reading and storyboarding. On day three, they examine folk tale elements (worksheet included), and design...

Kids consider revolution as a basis for creativity, art, and storytelling. After reading an excerpt from the book, Persepolis, learners choose one event from any world revolution to write about. They storyboard the event focusing on...

Young scholars practice their reading comprehension by reading a story in their class. For this story map lesson, students read the Marc Brown book Arthur's Tooth and discuss the story, characters and setting. Young scholars create a...

Scholars explore graphing. They will listen to and sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and estimate how many gifts were mentioned in the song. Then complete a data chart representing each gift given in the song. They also construct...

Students study geography. In this Arizona maps lesson, students develop their map reading skills. They have class discussions and work independently with various copies of Arizona maps to practice those skills. This lesson mentions...

Students observe and interpret artwork through conducting a variety of activities. In this lesson students will learn how to analyze art work in order to gain a better understanding of it.

Students interview a brick sculptor and aid in building a brick wall. They write expository paragraphs explaining the sequential process of building a reading wall. They create reading wall sketch designs. Students carve their names and...