Information, inferences, and innuendos. Text and subtext. Class members examine telegrams exchanged between President John F. Kennedy and Alabama Governor George Wallace, studying both what is stated and what is implied by the...

What is theme, and how can you find themes in literary works? These and other questions are answered by a colorful and engaging presentation that not only defines the term but also provides easy to understand examples. The slides...

The courage of Las Mariposas, the Mirabal sisters, is the focus of a series of activities designed to accompany a reading of In the Time of the Butterflies that ask readers to consider what it means to be courageous. Beautifully crafted...

“So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us.” Our Town is used as the text in a Common Core exemplar that examines the dramatic and...

Inspire young readers with this printable biography of Helen Keller. Including a timeline, glossary, and realistic illustrations with supporting captions, this is a great resource for not only teaching children about this amazing...

The challenge film makers face when creating a film based on a novel or nonfiction text is the focus of a interdisciplinary resource that uses To Kill a Mockingbird to teach viewers how to read the visual images of film. A...

War is one of the most profound human experiences in history, and is often best depicted in works of art and literature. Introduce class members to the poetry of World War I with this resource that uses John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"...

The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unit is a golden ticket for teachers looking for nicely written plans. Elementary and middle schoolers draw their impressions of characters, design and market their own candy creations, and use...

A 20-page guide is a must-have for any instructor, seasoned veteran, or first year-teacher, using Arthur Miller's The Crucible as an anchor text. The guide begins with extensive background information about Miller and the McCarthy era...

An 11-page teacher's guide that focuses on Delia Owens' bestseller Where the Crawdads Sing is packed with discussion questions and activities. Text-dependent questions, activities, and writing prompts are also included....

After examining different perspectives on book banning, scholars select a book from a list of frequently banned books and research the controversies surrounding it. They then craft an argument about their chosen book, including arguments...

A unit focuses on prewriting skills. Over 10 days, young scholars practice drawing lines and shapes, use play dough to build shapes, and track from left to right. Pupils put their sense of hearing to the test by listening for words...

First listen to the story The Meanest Thing to Say and then answer question regarding when the story takes place. Using evidence from the text, text clues and pictures to order events and find the time frame of the story is what this...

Help youngsters make connections between two different texts. They read two stories about the same character, Ira Sleeps Over and Ira Says Goodbye. They discuss how the character of Ira acts in each of the stories, how he...

Fifth graders utilize text features. In this text features lesson students read The Story of Jackie Robinson: Bravest Man in Baseball by Margaret Davidson. Students use clues from the table of contents, illustrations, and timeline to...

Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about...

Looking for resources that explore alternative perspectives of the Christopher Columbus story? Check out the images, videos, cartoons, primary source documents, and other texts in a packet designed to spark...

Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....

What skills are necessary to interact with different types of text? Twenty-first century learners live in a digital world and must develop a whole new set of skills to develop media literacy. Class members engage in a series of...

To demonstrate their ability to comprehend complex text, individuals analyze the details, syntax, and diction John Steinbeck uses in a passage from The Grapes of Wrath to reveal the develop and evolution of Mae's character.

Elie Wiesel's "Hope, Despair and Memory" provides ninth graders an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to analyze complex text. Individuals craft an essay that draws evidence from the text of the speech to show how Wiesel develops...

Asking questions about a text is an effective way to improve reading comprehension. Apply the Question Answer Response strategy to your unit on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. As kids read each passage, they decide if the answer...

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...

Take an in-depth look at a passage from Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie. Included here is the reading passage as well as a step-by-step procedure for reading the text, a set of text-dependent questions, and a final writing...