In this lesson, students learn about archetypes and spend time analyzing their use in both traditional and modern stories.
Students are introduced to Old English and the poetic devices of alliteration, kenning, and compounding in preparation for reading the epic poem "Beowulf".
This resource is an introduction to William Shakespeare's tragic play, "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar", through the study of universal themes using multiple-perspective investigations of betrayal scenarios.
The purpose of this lesson is to show learners how to keep a nature journal. How to reflect, respond, and question the observations they see in the world.
This is an introductory lesson on cells. Student learning begins with the teacher modeling the use of a T-chart graphic organizer while reading an article comparing simple and complex carbohydrates. Students then move to independent practice using the T-chart graphic organizer to compare simple (prokaryotic) cells and complex (eukaryotic) cells.
What makes a superhero super? By comparing popular culture superheroes with heroic characters in children's literature, students learn to think critically about character traits, and consider how cultural perspectives influence the kinds of heroes we choose.
This realistic fictional story is about Steven and his Aunt Carolyn. The two have always shared a special bond; each time Aunt Carolyn takes a trip, she sends a special postcard to Steven. Now, Aunt Carolyn is coming for the family block party and Steven wants to find a special gift for her.
This Informational text focuses on the migration habits of the grasshopper/locust and the gray whale.
In sixteen interwoven stories, Amy Tan's characters--four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters--struggle to connect despite the ghosts and secrets of the past. This Big Read Teachers Guide contains ten lessons to lead you through Amy Tans classic novel, The Joy Luck Club. Each lesson has four sections: a thematic focus, discussion activities, writing exercises, and homework assignments. In addition, we have provided capstone projects and suggested essay topics, as well as handouts with more background information about the novel, the historical period, and the author. All lessons dovetail with the state language arts standards required in the fiction genre.
ŕJust Plain FancyĚŇ is the story of a young Amish girl, Naomi, who longs to have something fancy in her life. But when an she finds an unusual egg that hatches into a peacock, she ends up learning a valuable lesson about an acceptable and admired kind of fancy.
This shared reading activity focuses on the importance of eating good food.
This tool allows students to create an online K-W-L chart. Saving capability makes it easy for them to start the chart before reading and then return to it to reflect on what they learned.
Patricias Great-Grandmother comes to America as a child from Russia. She creates a quilt that is passed on from generation to generation. The quilt becomes an important symbol and is used in many of the familys traditional Jewish celebrations.
While the long-term negative impact of poor readers can be enormous, the good news is that schools can train their own students to deliver effective tutoring in reading to younger peers. Kids as Reading Helpers: A Peer Tutor Training Manual is a complete package for training peer reading tutors. Peer tutoring answers the nagging problem of delivering effective reading support to the many struggling young readers in our schools. Furthermore, peer tutoring programs can improve the reading skills of tutors as well as tutees (Ehly, 1986) and - in some studies-have been shown to build tutor's social skills as well (Garcia-Vazquez & Ehly, 1995). Young children tend to find the opportunity to read aloud to an older peer tutor to be quite reinforcing, adding a motivational component to this intervention.
Students work in small groups to examine Margaret Atwood's use of and observations about language in The Handmaid's Tale. Through this activity, students discover and articulate overarching thematic trends in the book and then can extend their observations about official or political language to examples from their own world.
This lesson provides teachers with support for using text-dependent questions and Common Core literacy strategies to help students derive big ideas and key understandings while developing vocabulary using the text, "The Last Dragon." A young boy, Peter, is hesitant to spend the summer with his great aunt in Chinatown. Peter finds an aging parade dragon in a store and, in restoring it, learns to connect with the dragon and the Chinese community.
Students examine great leads in children's literature before writing or revising a lead in their own writing.
This story takes place in the 1930s in the Great Plains region of the United States devastated by a great drought. Leah had been given a pony by her father when times were good and crops were growing. Leah sells her pony to Mr. B to help her father. At the end of the story, Mr. B gives the pony back to Leah.
Using text from Doreen Cronin's Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type as shared readings, first-grade students learn word families and how to decode new words in a word family.
Students sing a popular children's song, follow along with a picture book that contains the lyrics and illustrations, and then participate in activities to reinforce learning of the vocabulary words.