Curated OER
Growing Independence and Fluency Design: Express Yourself!
Second graders practice reading with expression. After discussing how reading with feeling and excitement can enhance the text, 2nd graders listen as the teacher reads a story with and without emotion. Individual students practice...
Curated OER
All the World's a Stage
Is the circus a form of theater? Read "A City of Clowns? What Else Is New?" to sway your class that a circus, is indeed, a theatrical performance. Critical thinkers compare/contrast various forms of theater and identify what makes the...
San Francisco Symphony
Heritage Song
Learning how to compare and contrast is a core skill. Learners compare two music selections that showcase a specific heritage. They draw and discuss how each song and the composers of each song used their personal heritage as...
Curated OER
Cold War Conflict in Vietnam: The Vietnam-Era Presidency
Comparing and evaluating various media types is a great way to build critical analysis skills. Learners read about the Vietnam era presidency, specifically the foreign policy established by Johnson and Nixon. Then they compare several...
Curated OER
Immigration in Spain
How many people immigrate to Spain illegally each year? Both the United States and Spain see a lot of illegal immigration. Advanced learners will read various articles, compare and contrast the situation in both countries, and discuss...
Curated OER
Aesop's Fables
Regale your class with renditions of Aesop's fables from the engaging, and beautifully illustrated book by Jerry Pinkney. Guide discussion to practice prediction, compare and contrast various stories, explore the connections between the...
Curated OER
Ambitious Women Artists at Work
Examine the works of Luisa Roldan and Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun. Learners view various pieces of art from each of the artists and read about their lives. They discuss the information and construct a Venn diagram, comparing the two...
Library of Congress
The Story of The Three Little Pigs
Bring the 1904 version of the classic kid's tale, The Story of the Three Little Pigs to your young readers. With original drawings by L. Leslie Brooke, young reader take a step into a world where pigs can talk and a wolf is big and bad.
Curated OER
Don't Bet The House On It!
Great real-world math application! Have the class compare and contrast their estimated home price and income data with actual data. In groups, they participate in simulations to discover how the housing market and mortgages operate....
Virginia Department of Education
Growing Patterns and Sequences
Learners explore, discover, compare, and contrast arithmetic and geometric sequences in this collaborative, hands-on activity. They build and analyze growing patterns to distinguish which kind of sequence is represented by a set of data...
City University of New York
The Split Over Suffrage
Compare and contrast Frederick Douglass's and the National Women's Suffrage Association's stances on equal rights and suffrage with a series of documents and worksheets. Learners work together or independently to complete the packet, and...
Curated OER
Crane, London, and Literary Naturalism
Students analyze "To Build a Fire" by Jack London and "The Open boat" by Stephen Crane. They write an essay in which they compare and contrast the narrators and plots in each story.
Curated OER
The Hatfield and McCoy Feud
Learners explore West Virginia history with regard to Mountain and Appalachian Culture. They compare and contrast life now with life 100-150 years ago. They write and illustrate a short story about the life of children 100-150 years ago....
Curated OER
What was School Like 100 Years Ago?
Focussing on the Edwardian Era culture, students view photographs of students at school in the past and compare and contrast them to their school now. Students describe the differences in dress, classrooms, and classes. This could start...
Curated OER
Introduction to Myths, Fables, and Legends
Middle schoolers identify elements of myths, fables, and legends as they read an example of each. After reading an example of each type of story, they list elements from each. They compare and contrast these features by completing a...
Curated OER
Historical Agency in History Book Sets (HBS)
Study historical events by combining the study of historical fiction and non-fiction. Learners read about true past events in historical fiction novels and then research non-fiction accounts of the same events. What are some differences...
For the Teachers
Cause and Effect Matrix
Study cause and effect in both literature and informational text with a lesson designed for several different reading levels. After kids review the concept of cause and effect, they read an article or story and note the causes and...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Surprise!: Challenge Activities (Theme 2)
Surprise! is the theme of this series of challenge activities. The surprise comes from the information your scholars will discover when researching topics such as alligators and crocodiles, living in other countries, becoming a...
Curated OER
Gender, Sex, and Slavery
While examining slavery's impact on women, historians compare and contrast the perspectives of a plantation mistress and an enslaved woman, both reflecting on the system of forced prostitution. Text analysis and written responses create...
Reed Novel Studies
The Slave Dancer: Novel Study
What are the effects of a good literary cliffhanger? Using the novel study for Paula Fox's The Slave Dancer, pupils consider why the author chose to end the first chapter with suspense. They also answer text-based questions, practice new...
Curated OER
Find The Hidden Message: Media Literacy in Primary Grades
Learners practice listening to and reading various types of media and text. In groups, learners use video, newspapers, magazines, and more to compare and contrast different types of information. They identify the differences between fact...
Ohio Department of Education
Word Origins
Understanding a word's etymology can really help with decoding and building vocabulary skills. Readers compare and contrast words of similar origins but with different difficulty levels. They focus on prefixes, suffixes, and affixes....
National Wildlife Federation
Endangered Species: What and Where?
What do endangered species have in common with non-endangered species? Given an endangered species to read about, individuals choose another species that is not endangered to compare it to. As a class, they create a species book with the...
Curated OER
Call it "Macaroni"
Who knew there were so many fun educational opportunities featuring pasta? Scholars read a brief informational text about the history of pasta (note that "macaroni" is spelled two different ways, so address this if kids are reading...