Curated OER
Lights, Camera, Action...Crossing the Delaware in 9 Scenes
How does reading a drama differ from reading a novel? Middle schoolers become playwrights and explore these differences. After viewing the A&E movie,"The Crossing," groups create stage directions, write dialogue, and design sets and...
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The Second Best Known Christmas Story: Fun Trivia Quiz
In addition to some reading comprehension questions, this online quiz also includes facts about the history of the novel and Charles Dickens. Content from this quiz may be covered as an introduction or pre-reading activity for the novel....
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Directed Reading Thinking Activity: "A Raisin in the Sun"
Students predict outcomes of a text. In this comprehension strategy lesson, students read a poem and compare it to the play A Raisin in the Sun. Students discuss their similarities and the power of dreams.
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Fear, and Conquering Fear
The Lord of the Flies and The Kite Runner are the core texts in a unit that asks learners to examine various texts that show how fear can be a destructive force or it can be an agent of change. Individuals they design a project that...
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Take Effective Class Notes: Strategic Note-Taking
Your class members will feel confident in taking notes during your next lecture with this great note-taking worksheet, through which learners practice activating prior knowledge, recording key points, flagging new vocabulary, and...
Urban Education Exchange
Lessons and Units: The Watsons go to Birmingham—1963 5TH GRADE UNIT
Get ready to read The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 with a lesson about historical fiction. Spanning several centuries, the resource prompts learners to guess the historical era of a story based on a word or phrase in the text. In...
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Poetry
Fifth graders read several poems by famous poets and identify what about their style makes them unique. They then analyze and compare poetic style, use of forms and themes. Next, 5th graders investigate and collect different examples of...
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Authors of the Past and Present
Students research a chosen author. In this authors activity, students pick one author from the list provided, do research, and write a paper.
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William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying
Students analyze William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. In this literature analysis lesson, students compare a modern novel and play. Students analyze Faulkner's interior monologues. Students write a paper about the ways As I Lay Dying is or...
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Across Five Aprils
Students read the novel, Across Five Aprils and investigate the theme of the individual vs, community loyalties. They keep a daily journal, role-play situations, hold a mock debate, and write a research paper on "coming of age."
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Potter Book Review
Students describe the plot of the latest Harry Potter novel and comment on the highlights and weak points. They then evaluate the novel and understand the layout of a book review.
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Forest Activity: The Forest as Inspiration for Literature
Pupils analyze the role of the forest in literature. They read various literature selections, analyze the role the forest played as a setting, character, or symbol, and complete a writing activity.
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ROCKING ON TO THE ROCK
Students view the illustrations of family life in the early colonies and make a list of 10 things they see. Then compare those 10 items with your life today. Then read some of the novel "Constance" and write down 8 things that are learned.
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The Songcatcher
Learners read Sharyn McCrumb's and Maggie Greenwald's versions of "Songcatcher" and use them as a springboard to explore the heritage and traditions of Appalachian folk music. They review Internet sources, conduct research and write...
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Critic's Choice
Third graders read three to five genres and choose one as a favorite. They write an essay persuading the class to read the genre. This lesson serves as a nice introduction to different styles of literature.
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Greeting Card to A Character
Students create a greeting card from one character to another after finishing a novel. Individually, they use their imagination to write the paragraph using the text to support their ideas. They share their greeting card with the class...
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Time Travel
Students investigate the concept of time travel and quantum physics. They complete a Webquest, read excerpts from the book, 'The Time Machine,' play an online time traveler game, and read and evaluate newspaper articles about time.
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Using O. Henry's the Ransom of Red Chief To Develop a Larger Vocabulary
Ninth graders expand their reading vocabulary in order to increase comprehension. They play a game using vocabulary from a novel.
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Of Mice and Men
Eighth graders successfully create a newspaper that reflects the Great Depression Era using texts and clues from the literary work Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and Something Permanent by Cynthia Rylant and Walker Evans.
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Use Literature to Teach Tolerance
Students listen as teachers read a different book or a different passage that focuses on the theme of tolerance. Students then write a paragraph each day to tell how that day's book/passage taught them the importance of tolerance.
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Lizards
Fourth graders recall lizards from the text and report their important traits. The teacher adds the information to the map. They watch the map expand while it organizes all of the lizards and their characteristics.
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Gore Vidal
For this famous people worksheet, students read a selection about the life of Gore Vidal, then complete a variety of comprehension activities including synonym matches, fill-in-the-blank sentence completions, unscrambling words and...
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Three Circles II
Fourth graders practice a variety of strategies when investigating what happens when they put various numbers into circles of a configuration: they express a fraction as a decimal, write and solve problems involving decimal...
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Appreciating The Scarlet Letter
Tenth graders read the first 10 chapters of, 'The Scarlet Letter.' They utilize an assignment imbedded in this plan to research the characters and define the role each plays in the novel.