Curated OER
Peter and the Starcatchers: Anticipation Guide
Pique your pupils' interest before reading Peter and the Starcatchers with an anticipation guide. Given a list of 10 statements, learners choose true or false based on what they think the book is about. They then discuss in small groups...
EngageNY
Selecting Evidence to Logically Support Claims
It's time to make a rule sandwich! After exploring the writing assignment's rubric and analyzing a model essay, learners are guided through the prewriting phase using the sandwich technique. Pupils create their sandwich addressing the...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment: Justification for Character and Scene Selection
When it comes to love and midsummer nights, confessions are tricky. Learners place themselves in the shoes of a character from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and explain how a character manipulated another character in...
Curated OER
The Jacket: Journal Templates Teacher's Guide
Explore this story involving prejudice and racism to enhance learners' comprehension skills. The story The Jacket by Andrew Clements involves an African American boy who is falsely accused of stealing someone's jacket. This teacher's...
Curated OER
Anticipation Guides Improve Reading Comprehension
Beginning with anticipation guide strategies is a powerful method for improving reading comprehension. First, list initial ideas for a topic the class will be reading about. These ideas are formulated into statements, some of which are...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 3, Unit 1, Lesson 4
Can dogs feel shame? Explore the anthropomorphic connection between human emotions and animal behavior—or lack thereof—with a activity about Temple Grandin's book, Animals in Translation. Ninth graders continue a close reading of chapter...
Curated OER
Guided Reading: Three Little Pigs (Plus Wolf: Javalinas)
Guide your class through reading various versions of The Three Little Pigs. Talk about the traditional story line and then discuss a different point of view: Maybe the wolf was just an innocent bystander! This lesson plan, which has...
ReadWriteThink
Literature Circles: Getting Started
Make reading more enjoyable and interactive with literature circles! Here you'll find detailed lessons to begin the literature circle process. Ten lessons introduce each role learners take on. Literature circle roles include...
Curated OER
"As You Like It" by William Shakespeare
Jacque's soliloquy from Act II, scene ii of As You Like It sets the stage for a close reading exercise that models how to approach difficult, dense text and enables readers to practice reading comprehension and analysis skills. Learners...
Curated OER
Gary Paulsen's Canyons: Question the Author (QtA) Strategy
Gary Paulsen’s Canyons is the focus of an exercise that models how to read closely using a Questioning the Author (QtA) strategy. Complete directions for the strategy, which can be used with any text, are included in the richly-detailed...
Curated OER
Act it Out: Dramatizing Asian American Stories
Read and act out folktales, fairy tales, or myths from various Asian American cultures with your class. Each group reads a story aloud and then works together to create a short play or skit about the story. Suggestions for stories are...
Curated OER
Our Computers, Ourselves: Imagining the Digital Lives of Authors and Characters
The guiding question for this lesson is "Do computers and their contents shape who we are?" Open with a selection of Apple's commercials to introduce stereotypes and people's relationships with their computers. Then, read the attached...
Curated OER
On the Road Again
Young scholars read to their peers from selected texts. As one person reads, the other person listens to his/her peer, noting tone and fluency. Afterward, they reflect on each other's reading. There is a guided reflection worksheet...
Deliberating in a Democracy
Cyberbullying—Alternate Lesson Plan
Should schools be permitted to punish young scholars for off-campus cyberbullying? After reading a passage that details statistics about cyberbullying and Supreme Court rulings about schools' ability to limit student speech, class...
Curated OER
Guided Reading: Main Idea
Readers are presented with a list of three questions and asked to actively listen to a story or article to answer them. They verbally answer the questions to learn the strategy. Next, read a story to them or have them silently read a...
US Holocaust Museum
Life in Shadows: Hidden Children and the Holocaust
Hiding in the filth of a sewer, as a child, to avoid capture by Nazi soldiers—sounds scary! Scholars investigate the youngest victims of the Holocaust, the children. They research video clips and written sources from the Holocaust...
ReadWriteThink
Looking for the History in Historical Fiction: An Epidemic for Reading
Combine informational reading skills with fictional text in an innovative historical fiction lessons. After reading a fictional text related to diseases, class members read non-fictional text to gain knowledge about specific infectious...
Curated OER
Poe's Poetry and Prosody
Motivate your class with this lesson plan! Learners use passages from Edgar Allan Poe's poetry to practice reading fluency. They read "The Raven" as a rap song to better understand the rhyming patterns and pauses.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Animating Poetry: Reading Poems about the Natural World
Students complete poetry analysis activities. In this poetry analysis instructional activity, students consider the use of imagery and sound devices in poetry. Students translate poetry into another art, read a diverse selection of...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Issues of Asylum in the U.S.
Who gets to come to the United States? Examine cases of individuals seeking asylum with an informative reading passage that includes examples, statistics, and representations of public opinion regarding asylum. Groups then go on to...
Curated OER
Character Scrapbook Teacher's Guide
Students analyze a book's characters and create a scrapbook to print and save. In this on line interactive characterization lesson plan, students identify character traits and gain a deeper understanding of a book's characters.
Curated OER
NonFiction Reading
Students explore reading nonfiction. In this nonfiction instructional activity, students practice using KWL charts to organize nonfiction information gained from reading. Students explore unfamiliar words from reading and recognize...
Ontario
Reading Informational Text
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 help...
Curated OER
Reading About the Journey: The Odyssey
Young scholars practice their reading skills. In this reading fluency and comprehension lesson, students read instructor-selected passages from The Odyssey following the provided steps for the reading class activity that requires them to...