Scholars reflect upon their reading strengths and challenges to create personal reading goals. Participants use goal-setting verbiage in an accordion-style graphic organizer, a first step in writing a letter that details their reading...

Moving on up ... Scholars take a look at how the author of the model essay Elements of Mythology and Theme of Cronus moved up in the writing process from a graphic organizer to an essay. After walking through the writing process of the...

Improve class understanding of colonial times by reading an informational text and filling out the accompanying graphic organizer. Class members work with a partner to read, take notes, make inferences, and synthesize information.The...

Lesson ten in this unit for the book Bullfrogs at Magnolia Circle, prepares third graders to begin writing an informational paragraph about the adaptations of bullfrogs. First, young writers work either independently or in pairs to...

What was life like in colonial America? Follow this lesson and your pupils will find out what people in colonial times did for work and for fun. Ask learners to compare and contrast the two texts and explain what the reading helped them...

What is a dynamic character? Using an interesting resource, scholars set out to answer the question. They create graphic organizers to collect details about character development as they read the novel Inside Out & Back Again. They...

How do you grow a goal from a dream to reality? You make a plan! After reading chapters two and three of Where the Red Fern Grows, learners map how Billy earns his dogs by completing an organizer in pairs and then discussing answers in...

Sometimes, sensory details can bring you back to a familiar place. Study the setting descriptions from a critical chapter in Amy Tan's A Joy Luck Club, and discuss how they enhance the book's plot and contribute to a central theme.

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...

Fill-out a story map to help your scholars with pre-writing. They will use a story map template to pre-write. They also organize their ideas into steps which become the foundation for their first draft. Concrete objects are brought in to...

Students investigate how to use graphic organizers. In this literary elements lesson, students are introduced to several types of graphic organizers and their purpose. Students read a book of their choice and complete a graphic organizer...

Lesson 7 focuses on building academic vocabulary and writing an explanatory letter with supported textual evidence. For the first five minutes of the instructional activity, the educator reminds the class of how to read and refer to the...

Complete a puzzle one piece at a time. Scholars gather in triads to complete jigsaw activities over a monologue from Good Masters! Sweet Ladies. They read as a group and independently and use sticky notes to identify the gist of...

Celebrate and honor Native American culture with this set of graphic organizers that showcases literature like The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses and A Boy Called Slow as well as three other Native American literature books....

Character development, setting, and plot? Sounds like the makings of a good narrative story. Young authors read and analyze several narrative examples, and then they use what they know to pen an original composition. They work both in...

Allow your class to figure out what they will be studying through an inquiry-based anticipatory set that involves analysis of mystery documents and practice with making inferences. The lesson plan document includes a detailed description...

Begin class with a short comprehension quiz and review and then move into a new genre: two-voice poems. The activity provides information about this type of poetry as well as a video example made by eighth graders that you can show your...

When your class members have completed the novel Esperanza Rising, they will be ready to write an expository essay on how Esperanza responds to events and what this says about her character. Set your pupils up for success by...

Students identify the title and author of stories. They create a database that supplies both graphic and written information to identify a book.

The authors of the court's decision and the dissenting opinion on Plessy v. Ferguson disagreed on their interpretations of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Scholars set out to show how with an on-demand writing prompt. They...

See it through my eyes. Scholars complete mid-unit assessment part II by writing an essay describing how the narrator's point of view influences how the story is told in the text In the Middle of the Storm. Pupils also complete a...

For every action there is a consequence. Scholars continue their work on creating a cascading consequence chart about DDT using Welcome Back, The Exterminator, Rachel Carson: Sounding the Alarm on Pollution along...

Just like in real life, characters in short stories show their true personalities through their words and deeds. Decipher the character development in Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with a set of activities...

The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...