“The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable. . .” After reading “The Aftermath,” the final chapter of Hiroshima, class members use a Question Answer Response (QAR) strategy to reflect on issues raised...

Create a personal website for Phoebe. Play a song dealing with non-conformity. Have class members write an advice letter to Holden. Here's a teacher resource meant to accompany The Catcher in the Rye that is chock-full of strategies. It...

Here is a fabulous, five-page lesson plan on how keywords can help a reader with his/her reading comprehension. After a teacher-led discussion, pupils pair off with each other and work together to identify the main idea in a passage of...

Learning to recognize the importance of the features of information text (i.e., titles, subtitles, endnotes, sidebars, etc.) is the focus of a reading activity designed for middle schoolers. Learners examine how these text features...

Break your class into groups and have them read certain passages from the text Flipped (included here). After every two paragraphs, the groups stop to answer the questions included. Which questions provided are right there questions?...

Get your little readers moving with a fun activity about Eric Carle's Little Cloud. After reading the book together, they engage in a series of locomotor and manipulative activities to illustrate how different elements of the story...

In many places in the world, people go to great lengths to get books to read. This beginning-of-the-year activity uses pictures of people reading in extraordinary situations to stimulate effective listening and speaking using the...

Activate your pupils' thinking before reading chapter five of Ordinary People. Learners decide whether they agree or disagree with six statements and discuss their ideas in small groups. They then read chapter five and determine...

Pogrom, schlepped, meshuga. Kapo, reich, Wehrmacht. As part of a unit study of Maus I and II, readers use a list-group-label (LGL) strategy for vocabulary drawn from Art Spiegelman's famous graphic novels. The focus of the activity is...

Prior to reading Tolkien's The Hobbit, class members respond to a series of statements in an anticipation guide that introduces many of the central concepts of the novel.

Third graders complete a variety of reading and writing activities related to the book "Flat Stanley." They create an illustration and write a short summary for each chapter, and write a letter and send a "Flat Stanley" to a friend or...

Young readers practice getting information from both the text and the illustrations found in books they are reading. They see that quite often, authors use pictures to help them get their writing process started. Youngsters are invited...

Build vocabulary, fluency and confidence in your French speakers by having them participate in some of these engaging activities. Several suggestions are given, but you will have to design the actual lesson plan yourself.

What was the relationship like between George and Martha Washington? To protect their privacy, Martha Washington destroyed all her husband’s letters after his death so historians have little evidence of their lives together. Two letters...

Read and repeat. Scholars repeat the strategies for digging deeper into text from lesson two. This time they focus on Middle Ages Excerpt 2. Learners write unfamiliar words in the word catcher and use details from the text to add to the...

Scholars watch Developing a Vital Resource for Canadians and the World to learn about the supplement potash that helps plants grow. They watch the video several times, completing a note catcher to record key ideas along the way....

Ninth graders examine how literature connects to real-life and see how irony aids in the development of theme. They read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, and discuss elements of foreshadowing and situational irony. Then learners will write...

Third graders examine how a family modifies their environment to create a home out of mud. They read the book "This House is Made of Mud" by Ken Buchanan, and write a description of their own home that compares the home of mud to their...

Follow this lesson, which is written more like a script, to practice reading a poem with your class. Pupils read "The Road Not Taken" and respond to five multiple choice questions on a provided worksheet. The plan leads you through a...

Students identify and portray specific character attributes through uprigth movement, creating a portrayal of an animal. They use vibrant, upright movement to convey the characteristics and temperament of specific animals. Finally,...

Discover the exciting world of readers theater! Scholars learn all about the reading strategy, reading a script about American heroes and completing an I Notice/I Wonder chart. Next, pupils participate in readers theater using the...

Youngsters develop their number sense by rote counting from one to ten. Over time, they identify the numbers on their own and no longer rely on fixed recitation. Using numerical flashcards, a teacher will randomly choose numbers from the...

Your young historians will read excerpts from three parts of the United States Constitution—Article One, the Thirteenth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment—and discuss how they each address the issue of slavery. 

Read. Stop. Think. Scholars use a reading strategy to process the challenging text, "The Vietnam Wars." They read a paragraph and then stop to think about the text and its meaning. Readers then go on to work with partners and make notes...