Curated OER
Pablita Indian Legends
Scholars are introduced to the characteristics of a legend. They read and discuss Old Father Story Teller by Pablita Velarde. Then, in groups, they write and illustrate a poem based on one of the legends from the book. This lesson plan...
Curated OER
Expressing Thoughts & Feelings
Students discuss an ordinary apple. They pass the apple around the room, whacking it on the floor at their turn. Students watch as the teacher cuts open the apple showing them it looks the same on the outside, but is bruised on the...
Curated OER
Vivid Verbs
Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...
Curated OER
Holes Comprehension Companion
Here is a one-stop planning resource for Louis Sachar's Newbery Award-winning book Holes. You'll find 21 links to worksheets and various activities designed to span the entire book. Learners draw to help analyze settings and make...
Curated OER
Analyzing Literary Devices
Eighth graders identify figurative language and poetry in this literary analysis lesson. Using Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and a YouTube video for "The Walrus and the Carpenter," young readers complete a literary device...
Curated OER
The Iditarod Race Compared with the Movie, Iron Will
Feel the freezing rush of an Alaskan sled dog race in this reading lesson. Using research about the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, seventh graders compare and contrast the depiction in the movie Iron Will. The lesson lasts for seven days...
Curated OER
The World of Work
Students identify between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors at work. In this work behaviors lesson, students use a dictionary to define the related terms and visit various links to complete activities that define work place...
Curated OER
Map It Out
Explore how illustrations add to a story. Young learners will look at picture books to see how the pictures tell the story. They create illustrations to go with a chosen story, and then flip the activity so they have to write a story to...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan for Chato's Kitchen
Through an exploration of Chato's Kitchen by Gary Soto, learners practice sequencing skills, retelling a story, and Spanish vocabulary words. All of the necessary resources, worksheets, and other materials are provided in order to give...
Curated OER
Tortoise and Hare Races
Practice basic map skills with the story of The Tortoise and the Hare. After listening to the story, class members create a map that indicates the starting line, the path the animals took, where they stopped to rest, and the finish line....
Curated OER
Introduction to Archetypes
Here is a full lesson with all the needed materials and PowerPoints attached! Introduce your class to archetypes by showing them the included presentation. The presentation gives definitions and examples of archetypal characters,...
Curated OER
Fast Food Nation: Study Questions
Are you introducing your class to the horrors of eating unhealthy? This lesson contains 24 reading comprehension questions relating to the non-fiction book. Readers are encouraged to copy these and answer them in their reading journals.
Indiana University
Literature of Asia and the Middle East: "A Sound of Hammering" by Dazai Osamu
Dazai Osamu’s short story, “A Sound of Hammering” is the focus of a three-day investigation of modern Japanese literature and life in post-World War II Japan. The events in Osamu’s story mirror those in his own life, and give a...
Novelinks
Lord of the Flies: Outlining and Begin Drafting
Help young writers with the daunting prospect of a five-paragraph essay. Using William Golding's Lord of the Flies, learners work through a short process to shore up their brainstorming and prepare to write a longer essay.
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.7
When your pupils read an account of an event, are they conscious of the fact that this particular account might focus on certain details, while ignoring others? Open their eyes to bias and varying interpretation of facts with the ideas...
National Gallery of Canada
How Do You Feel?
Photographs can show a range of emotions. Discuss Dorothea Lange's photo Migrant Mother and a range of other images in relation to emotion. After the discussion, class members contribute to a set of photographs that express various...
National Gallery of Canada
A Cultural Portrait
Explore heritage and identity through an examination of art and a related project. The featured art, related to the African diaspora, includes several types of art created by different artists. Pupils consider their own backgrounds and...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Grade 4 Reading Item Specifications
Is it the end of the school year and you're in need of test practice? Use a set of reading passages to challenge fourth graders to answer questions based on what they read. Some of the questions require readers to compare and contrast a...
Code.org
Keys and Passwords
Scholars explore the relationship between cipher keys and passwords and as they learn more about the Vigenere cipher and continue to read from the book Blown to Bits in the seventh instructional activity of the series. They conduct an...
Teach Engineering
Engineering and the Periodic Table
Elements, to the rescue! Scholars first review the periodic table, and then learn about the first 20 elements and their properties and uses in the fourth of six lessons in the Mixtures and Solutions unit. Applying their newfound...
Trinity University
Julius Caesar: The Power of Persuasion
"Friend, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears..." Those words begin one of the most persuasive speeches in literature. Explore the elements of persuasion in a series of lessons related to William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. In addition...
Curated OER
Reading Response Journal Lit Logs
Here is a worksheet presenting many ways to create topics and start sentences. The writing prompts are best used for young writers who are creating reading response journals or literature logs. Sometimes, all a writer needs is a good...
Syracuse City School District
Reading Comprehension Unit Plan
A unit plan uses short texts to teach literary elements such as theme and characterization. Included are passages by authors such as Walter Dean Myers and Sandra Cisneros. Activities include quick writes, filling in graphic organizers,...
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast: Literary Analysis
Great for a reading intervention or remedial Language Arts class, this instructional activity uses two stories from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III ("Terri Jackson" and "Mary Lou" to reinforce note-taking skills, story elements,...