Curated OER
Reading Comprehension: Thunder and Lightning
Thunder and lightning are so exciting! Your class gets to read all about it. This informational reading passage provides them with a scientific explanation of thunder and lightning. They read the passage, answer comprehension questions,...
Curated OER
Reading Connected Text Accuracy (Passage)
Use some of these 80-word passages to practice reading fluency with your beginners. Project the text so all learners can see it, pointing to each word as scholars recite them one at a time. Warn readers of irregularly spelled words by...
Polk Bros Foundation
I Can Identify a Nonfiction Writer's Main Idea and Supporting Examples
Use this page to quickly identify the central idea of a text and organize ideas for writing an informational or explanatory text. The worksheet is split into two parts. In the first part, pupils note down the main idea and supporting...
Curated OER
Presenting Information
How do you make a pizza? Scholars examine a recipe for one of their favorite dishes. After reading the eight steps, they must re-write the steps in order. Although this offers great printing practice, younger writers may find the narrow...
Curated OER
Discovering Saturn, The Real "Lord of the Rings"
Reading, writing, and rings! A lesson plan from NASA combines space science with authentic reading and writing tasks. Included in this lesson plan are pre-reading activities, four mini informational booklets on Saturn, a...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Get it Write
In an effort to practice engineering design, STEM classes break out into teams and endeavor to make a working ink pen. To prepare, they read about writing implements through history, patents, and viscosity of liquids. Armed with this...
Curated OER
But I'm Not a Writing Teacher!
How teaching writing skills in the science classroom will benefit your students as they transition to Common Core.
Curated OER
Brochure Writing
What do you use a brochure for? Middle schoolers or underperforming high schoolers identify the attributes of informative brochures. Either bring in a few brochures you've collected or use the sample brochures attached here. While...
Pennsylvania Department of Education
Informational Writing
Emerging writers identify an informational piece of writing. They are provided with examples of informational writing and view a PowerPoint on narrative writing. Then, they design their own informational writing with a brochure,...
Channel Islands Film
Magic Isle: Lesson Plan 3
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...
EngageNY
Organizing Evidence from Multiple Informational Texts to Prepare for Writing: What Makes an Earthquake a Natural Disaster?
Fifth graders prepare for their end of the unit essay assessment by continuing to look at what makes an earthquake a natural disaster. They complete a graphic organizer and write a topic sentence. To finish, they view a model essay and...
EngageNY
Writing and Revising Our Texts: Using Peer Critique to Improve First Drafts
Mail me a postcard. Individuals design a postcard to show what Meg Lowman from The Most Beautiful Roof in the
World might have written to her friends at home. They then continue to work on writing a science journal entry.
EngageNY
Main Ideas in Informational Text: Analyzing a Firsthand Human Rights Account for Connections to Specific Articles of the UDHR
Lesson 10 in a series of human rights lessons focuses on the skills of finding evidence and summarizing. Your young readers work to compare the two texts they have read in this unit: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
EngageNY
Analyzing the Structure and Content of an Essay to Inform
Outlines are a great asset to essay planning. Scholars read and analyze a model essay about the importance of daily reading and consider how it would look in an outline format. Next, they outline their own informative essays about rules...
Curated OER
Performance-Based Assessment Practice Test (Grade 5 ELA/Literacy)
Check in on the development of your fifth graders' reading and writing skills with this Common Core-designed assessment. Given a series of six reading passages ranging from narrative stories to informational texts, young...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit 3 Assessment, Part I: Short Constructed Response and Organizing Notes for a Public Speech
It's time to put pen to paper. Scholars complete the first part of the mid-unit 3 assessment, writing a short constructed response about international aid following a natural disaster. Next, pupils use informational texts and note...
National Council of Teachers of English
Writing Acrostic Poems with Thematically Related Texts in the Content Areas
Scholars scour thematically aligned texts to gather a bank of words they can use in an original acrostic poem.
Curated OER
Formal versus Informal Language
Engage in an activity that focuses on the concepts of formal and informal language use. Middle and high schoolers compare and contrast each style by using a Venn diagram that includes some examples. They read and hear a passage of lyrics...
EngageNY
Paragraph Writing, Part II
Come up with a list of requirements for this expository essay on Esperanza's character in Esperanza Rising as a class and use the list to guide class writing. Here, learners will complete the first paragraph, discuss their notes for the...
Curated OER
Writing an Explanation
Bananas are an important part of a healthy diet - but where do they come from? Third graders write an explanatory text about the origins of bananas. The bottom part of the paper includes necessary information about bananas, as well as a...
EngageNY
Paragraph Writing About Waiting for the Biblioburro
Ask your learners to synthesize what they know about Waiting for the Biblioburro by writing a well-organized paragraph. Young writers focus on using transition words and including specific details in their paragraphs. The plan allows for...
EngageNY
Analyzing a Model Informative Consumer Guide
What do consumers need to know about overfishing before buying fish? Scholars consider the question as they prepare for their performance task, which is to create a consumer guide for people about purchasing fish responsibly. After...
Curated OER
Fluency Passages, 3rd Grade
What would it be like to travel in a covered wagon? Learn about the life of a pioneer with a short informational reading passage. Kids read four paragraphs about traveling in a covered wagon and how it is different than traveling today,...
English Worksheets Land
Compare and Contrast - Popcorn
Discover why popcorn pops and how it found its way to the movie theatre with a worksheet that reinforces comparing and contrasting skills. Scholars read two brief passages then share through writing the similarities and differences they...