A classic Western, "True Grit" recounts the backcountry adventure of a one-eyed marshal, "Rooster" Cogburn, and a spirited fourteen-year-old, Mattie Ross, as they seek to avenge the death of Mattie's father. 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.

A boy named Taro helps Jiro-San, a wise old man, clean up the beach for the giant sea turtles that swim ashore to lay their eggs. While he waits, he learns about the rewards that come from being calm and observing the world around you.

Students develop their reading, writing, research, and technology skills using graphic novels. As a final activity, students create their own graphic novels using comic software.

Two ants, along with others from their nest, set out to gather crystals for their queen. Initially staying and keeping crystals for themselves, the two ants eventually learn to be happy in their familiar nest.

This video segment from Between the Lions is a mixed-media song performed by Fonix about the two sounds made by the letter "g." Words that feature the letter "g" and appear on screen are: gypsy, guppy, goat, galaxy, gentle giant, goo, giraffe, glue, Gina, George, Gene, Gail, Goldie, gossip, strange, gaga, garbage, luggage, grunge, grange, gadget, and gigantic. The "g" is highlighted in a different color. The song also explains the "g" sound when "g" precedes the letters e, i, and y. This video segment provides a resource for Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Letter Knowledge Awareness, and Phonological Awareness. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.

Despite obstacles in his life such as a family illness and the Great Depression, Uncle Jed achieved his dream of opening a barbershop at age 79.

This module is suitable for K-12 ELA / Literacy instructors, as well as teachers of history/social studies, science, and technical subjects.

Folk tales and fairy tales are of interest to and part of the language arts curriculum for young learners. This lesson supports the study of this genre and the study of irregular patterns and letter-sound relationships related to decoding and spelling. After reading the folk tale Jack and the Beanstalk, students discuss the word giant and its beginning sound. Students then create their own lists of words that begin with the same sound. Then, students are introduced to words with the soft g sound and create a new list of words with this beginning sound. As a culminating activity, students work individually or in groups to categorize animal names into groups according to their beginning g sound.

Students analyze the concepts of identity, stereotyping, and discrimination by reading picture books; identify how these concepts are dealt with in each book; and discuss concrete actions to stop discrimination.

Working in small groups, students read and discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir "Night" and then take turns assuming the teacher role, as the class works with four different comprehension strategies.

In this lesson students will create a graphic organizer that uses the titles and subtitles of an informational text before they begin reading.

In this lessons students identify information from text using titles, subtitles, diagrams, charts, graphs, maps, photographs, illustrations, and captions by using a preview checklist.

In this lesson students will use the core standards and an academic vocabulary template (adapted from Janet Allen and Robert Marzano) to explicitly learn the academic language they will need to understand, not only in English Language Arts, but in all content areas.

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, "A Very Important Day." In this story, several different families from other countries prepare to become US citizens. Characters from different cultures share one exciting and important event.

Volcanoes show us how the earth changes. Volcanoes can be made of lava, gases, hot steam, ground-up rocks and melted rock called lava. Scientists study volcanoes and the earths movement and try to understand how they erupt.

This activity focuses on germs and learning how to prevent the spread of germs.

A boy on a family backpacking adventure discovers an amazing waterfall and decides he wants to climb to the top. The boy becomes a leader and the family bonds when the boy challenges them all to climb it

In this lesson students will create a paper face and a paper face book.

This activity focuses on being an individual and reminds students that it is okay to be different.

Questions about weather clear up when students use what they learned from their books to create a presentation to share with the rest of the class.