In this strategy guide, you’ll learn about Partner Talk—a way to provide students with another learning opportunity to make learning their own through collaboration and discussion. Partner Talk can be used for assessing classwork, making connections to prior knowledge, discussing vocabulary, or simplifying concepts.

One of the main goals of the English Language Arts Common Core Standards is to build natural collaboration and discussion strategies within students, helping to prepare them for higher levels of education and collaboration in the workforce. In today’s classrooms, students are using complex texts and are being asked to use a variety of strategies and provide evidence-based responses. Partner Talk is a best practice that gives students an active role in their learning and scaffold the experience for students.

This is a Zuni play about an ant in the search to find out who is strongest of all. The ant talks with numerous characters to find out who is the strongest. At the end, he learns the lesson that everything is stronger than something else.

This set of lessons extends over a few days. Students read and annotate Ernie Pyle's "A Long Thin Line of Anguish." Students complete a SAYS/DOES graphic organizer, working on summarizing the text, noticing the choices the author makes about use of details, and describing the choices the author makes regarding the structure of the article.

Students complete a SOAPStone handout, identifying subject, occasion, author, purpose, speaker and tone (SOAPStone is a pre-AP/AP strategy). Students develop claims about why Ernie Pyle makes the writing choices he makes. Students write an informal, free-response style assessment about the impact of Pyle's choices.

This anthology presents a superb selection of the finest Mexican short stories ever written, and offers a glimpse into a diverse and fascinating culture. Authors include Juan Rulfo, Octavio Paz, Rosario Castellanos, and Carlos Fuentes. The Big Read Reader's Guide deepens your exploration with interviews, booklists, timelines, and historical information. We hope this guide and syllabus allow you to have fun with your students while introducing them to the work of the work of the great Mexican authors included in this anthology.

Glashka uses her innate connection and intuition with nature to help bring together the community in hopes of trying to save the lives of the trapped Beluga whales, who have swam into the freezing channel

Benny is nervous about the upcoming talent show. After a talk with her parents, Beany realizes that the most important thing is doing what makes her feel happy and not letting herself get pressured by her friend.

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, "Tanya's Reunion." Tanya is initially thrilled to be heading early to Grandmaĺĺs Virginia family farm for a reunion, but it's not as much fun as she had imagined. When Grandma shares her memories and Tanya discovers an important artifact, Tanya embraces the farm for what was in the past and what is in the present.

Students use both analytical and creative skills to adapt passages from a novel with significant internal dialogue and conflict, such as Toni Morrison's "Beloved", into a ten-minute play.

In this video segment from Between the Lions, a large dinosaur puppet teaches a class of monkeys about ten little words through a song. These words promote reading fluency and include: I, he, they, with, was, his, are, on, as, and for. This video segment provides a resource for Fluency and Phonological Awareness. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.

This 18 day unit explicitly teaches text structures, summary, text features, reading informational text about Mesopotamia, and writing a book about Mesopotamia. Instruction moves from high scaffolding to moderate scaffolding to independent practice as students become familiar with the various text structures, how to identify them, what graphic organizer will work with each text structure, how to use notes recorded in graphic organizers to write summaries, and how to compile an informational book. Mesopotamia is the content used as an anchor.

The importance of reading aloud to children is an established tenet of reading instruction. This lesson supports the language development and reading comprehension of kindergarten through second graders. Through the use of the text talk strategy, students explain, develop, and expand story ideas. This lesson is designed to help students learn how to gain meaning from words that are taken out of their original context.

Zora Neale Hurston's vibrant novel presents Janie Mae Crawford's growth from a voiceless teenage girl into a woman who takes charge of her own destiny. The Big Read Readerĺĺs Guide deepens your exploration with interviews, booklists, time lines, and historical information. We hope this guide and syllabus allow you to have fun with your students while introducing them to the work of a great American author.

Tracing the tour of one American platoon this book is not just a tale of the Vietnam War, although it's considered one of the finest books ever about combat. This award-winning book is a brutal, sometimes funny, often profound narrative about the human heart--how it fares under pressure, and what it can endure. re in American culture and to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment. The Big Read Reader's guide deepens your exploration with interviews, booklists, timelines, and historical information. We hope this guide and syllabus allow you to have fun with your students while introducing them to the work of a great American author.

As Harper Lee's narrator, Scout Finch, tries to draw out a reclusive neighbor, she bears witness to a racially charged trial that shapes the character of her Alabama community. The Big Read Readers Guide deepens your exploration with interviews, booklists, time lines, and historical information. We hope this guide and syllabus allow you to have fun with your students while introducing them to the work of a great American author.

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 "Tomas and the Library Lady". With the help of the English-speaking local librarian, Spanish-speaking Tomas is encouraged to assume the role of family storyteller, finding that he cannot only be a learner but a teacher as well.

In this trickster tale, Bear and Hare are involved in a gardening partnership. Industrious, clever Hare makes a deal with BearÄ Hare and his family work Bear's land and split the crops in half. In the end, Bear learns that he has to do hard work to be rewarded.

In this lesson using the The Tortoise and the Hare fable students will learn basic map skills.

Everyone knows that "Star Wars" character Darth Vader is a villain. This lesson asks students to explore how they know such things about heroes and villains they encounter in texts. After examining how moviemakers communicate the villainy of Darth Vader, students examine a passage from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that describes the villain Voldemort, noting how Rowling communicates details about the character. Students then read novels in small groups, with each group member tracking a character in a reading log. When they finish their novels, students design posters and present details on their novels to the class. After the presentations, students make observations on how authors develop character and write journal entries reflecting on what they learned.

A crew of sailors captained by Sir Ernest Shackleton is trying to reach the South Poles ice cap when their ship, Endurance, is blocked by the ice and is crushed by moving ice a month later. The crew camps on the ice and then Shack decides they should travel in lifeboats to Elephant Island and from there to the whaling station on South Georgia Island.

Students learn how to walk a mile in someone else's shoes by reading historical fiction about the Underground Railroad.