Let's take a walk! Scholars participate in a gallery walk to view images and text about athletes Althea Gibson and Roberto Clemente. After summarizing the information they've learned, pupils choose which athlete they are interested in...

Use picture cues as a tool in order to create meaning along with text. With a wordless comic, young illustrators discuss the main idea and character traits, and independently write a summary for a page of a wordless comic. This strategy...

Have your class participate in an interview activity using an informational text about the Amazon. After reading a Cultural Connections story about a person from the Amazon, middle schoolers write interview questions based on the text....

What was Shakespeare's youth like? Virginia Woolf considers the question in her nonfiction text, A Room of One's Own. Scholars begin reading Woolf's work before analyzing some of the text. Next, they write an objective summary and...

That's all, folks! Scholars work with their group members to create conclusions for their To Kill A Mockingbird reader's theater scripts. They use a criteria list to help guide their conclusion writing and discuss how the conclusions...

Scholars read "Doc-Lap at Last" and participate in a Three Threes in a Row activity in which they answer three questions about the text in their rows. They then discuss the central idea of the text. Readers finish the lesson plan with a...

The gist should be short and sweet! Pupils practice finding the gist of an informational text and then write a summary of the text. Next, they gather with their research teams to discuss a focus question based on the novel Bud, Not Buddy...

Demonstrate how to cite information from Internet sources without plagiarizing. If your class is working on an Internet research paper, and you have observed learners cutting and pasting directly from the Internet, the activities and...

Can people live forever? Scholars ponder the answer as they analyze an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. As readers discover Lacks' immortal cells, they discuss how the author carefully sequences, connects and unfolds...

Walk through the pictures to understand the text. Scholars analyze The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth by taking a book walk and looking at the pictures. They then do a first read of Life before Philo to...

Pupils explore the narrative structure of a piece of literary text, mapping out the plot structure of the Greek myth "Pyramus and Thisbe." Next, they use their completed graphic organizers to write story summaries.

Readers take a look at pages 40-45 in Promises to Keep and identify evidence to support Sharon Robinson's opinion about her father. They divide up the text and complete task cards before writing vocabulary from the story on index cards.

As your class finishes the novel Dragonwings, use these culminating projects. A vocabulary list is given for chapters eleven and twelve and either an epitaph or letter activity concludes the book. The final project consists of creating a...

Students encounter the tools they need to begin their journey of reading. They must realize that they must gain comprehension skills to comprehend the meaning behind what is being read. Students use this strategy to pull out key...

Students summarize information. In this language arts lesson plan, students summarize information from a fictional text. Students read a folktale and summarize the story.

How much can opinion influence a news story? A standalone resource discusses the importance of John Brown's Raid through the lens of journalism. Learners analyze two different texts, one from the perspective of the North and the other of...

What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of having siblings? Pupils explore this topic with the Beezus and Ramona novel study. Additionally, scholars answer questions about chapter one of the time-honored book by Beverly Cleary...

Equality for all? Scholars talk with partners to predict Shirley Chisholm's stand in her speech "Equal Rights for Women." They then read the speech and circle unfamiliar words to understand the meaning better. Readers go on to answer...

How can learners evaluate research sources for authority, accuracy, and credibility? By completing readings, discussions, and graphic organizers, scholars learn how to properly evaluate sources to find credible information. Additionally,...

Groups use a Venn diagram to compare the theme of love and loss in Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement address to Stanford University students and Christopher Paul Curtis' Bud, Not Buddy.

Get your writers ready to compose a constructed response essay in response to either an informational or fictional text. Pupils note down the big idea they wish to address as well as up to nine examples from the text that they wish to...

Here is a reading strategies lesson in which learners use post it notes to create a bulletin board. They post their new questions on the bulletin board and look back at questions they have already learned the answer to. A great idea,...

Young historians practice in-depth, quality analysis of primary source texts in this three-lesson unit, which examines excerpts from the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Caleb...

What kind of mouse is Despereaux Tilling ... a field mouse? A white-footed mouse? With the novel study for The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, scholars research the different species of mice and draw pictures of the one that they...