Council for Economic Education
Paper Money of the Sung, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties
Why did the Chinese develop paper money? They were the first society to use paper currency. Learners consider why paper money was more convenient than other mechanisms of trade using a helpful lesson plan, which includes a graphic...
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,...
Illinois State Board of Education
Common Core Teaching and Learning Strategies
Here's a resource that deserves a place in your curriculum library, whether or not your school has adopted the Common Core. Designed for middle and high school language arts classes, the packet is packed with teaching tips, materials,...
California Education Partners
Eleven
It is difficult to articulate how growing up feels as accurately and beautifully as Sandra Cisneros does in her short story "Eleven." After seventh graders read the story and note the author's use of figurative language, they respond to...
Curated OER
Predicting a Mystery's Solution
Practice making informed predictions. Have your class create a paper fortune-teller and ask questions about the future. They compare the fortune-telling process to the more informed kind of predictions they make while reading. They...
Teacher's Corner
Dr. Seuss Author Study
Want to know more about Dr. Seuss? Scholars research topics such as his childhood, family, education, jobs, and story themes to learn more about the ever-popular and fun to read author, Dr. Seuss.
Lerner Publishing
Meet the Dinosaurs
Take your class of youngsters on a prehistoric adventure with this four-lesson series on dinosaurs. Accompanying the Meet the Dinosaurs books by Don Lessem, these lessons engage children in writing their own dinosaur books, making...
William & Mary
Inferential Reading Comprehension Considerations Packet
Don't forget to read between the lines! Educators learn tips and activities to help scholars learn to infer to increase reading comprehension. Activities suggested include think alouds, backwards words, and who's who. the packet includes...
Curated OER
During Reading Strategies
"How important is freedom to you and your family?" The guiding question becomes much more powerful after your class reads and responds to a passage from a historical novel. While reading the passage, they complete a graphic organizer...
Curated OER
Reading Study Guide: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Meant for use with Maya Angelou's first autobiographical volume I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the materials here are designed for a homeschool setting, but they'd suit any classroom or text. Graphic organizers, chapter summary guides,...
Bantam Books
The Martian Chronicles: K-W-H-L Activity
Prepare your class for a unit on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with an activity that works for pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading. Learners fill out a K-W-H-L chart to reflect on what they already know, what they'd...
Novelinks
The Martian Chronicles: Double-Entry Journals
Teach learners to reflect on their reading with a lesson about double-entry journals. As they read Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, class members note interesting passages from the text on the left side of their page, and jot down...
Curated OER
Poetry Reading and Analysis Worksheet - As You Like It
Enhance your lesson on Shakespeare with this poetry activity. After reading lines 139-167 from As You Like It Act II, Scene 7 (provided on the first page), middle schoolers work on a graphic organizer to paraphrase each part of the poem....
Curriculum Corner
Fiction Graphic Organizers
Analyze a fictional text with a four-page packet that explores a story's main character and moral, challenges scholars to ask and answer questions about the text, and to create a story map.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Nature: Friend and Foe: Extra Support Lessons (Theme 6)
Breaking down words into syllables has two benefits: it improves vocabulary and it improves understanding of a text. The third and final resource in a series of materials designed to be used with Nature: Friend or Foe offers extra...
Curated OER
Poetry Reading and Analysis Worksheet
"Things are not what they seem" in this poetry activity, which discusses Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life." Your students will see the world through the eyes of the transcendentalists after analyzing the meaning, context,...
Curated OER
Poetry Reading: Analysis Worksheet
Explore poetry by reading the poem "The Walloping Window Blind" by Charles E. Carryl, and completing an analysis with your class. The worksheet provides the entire poem, a graphic organizer to help with summarizing and paraphrasing, and...
University of Florida
Unhealthy Forests and the News
Everyone knows a tree makes a sound when it falls, but what do we know about dying trees? Class members learn background information about Laurel wilt disease from a teacher-led presentation. Team members work with partners to read and...
Bermudian Springs School District
John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath — Independent Reading
Lies, deceit, betrayal, criminality: these topics are just a few of the reasons that John Steinbeck's classic novel The Grapes of Wrath has captivated people since its 1939 publication. Scholars begin the lesson by reading background...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Reading Primary Sources: Darwin and Wallace
Take your classes back in time. Learners read real historical texts from both Darwin and Wallace as well as an announcement of their findings. Using guiding questions, they make inferences and draw conclusions from the information in the...
Curated OER
Graphic Organizers
Students complete graphic organizers. For this graphic organizer lesson plan, students fill out various graphic organizers in order to better understand a comprehension skill. Eighteen graphic organizers are included.
Curated OER
T- Chart Graphic Organizer
In this reading strategy worksheet, learners use a T-Chart to record what they know and what they learned about subject. Students complete one graphic organizer.
EngageNY
Planning Writing: Bullfrog Information Paragraph
Lesson ten in this unit for the book Bullfrogs at Magnolia Circle, prepares third graders to begin writing an informational paragraph about the adaptations of bullfrogs. First, young writers work either independently or in pairs to...
Curated OER
A Year of Reading
Utilize literature books for youth as a means to engage new readers and celebrate reading accomplishments.