Graphic novels, animated stories, and storytelling videos pop with enhanced meaning, tone and beauty. Use this lesson plan with a mentor text to teach your students to note how such features contribute to the reader’s experience.

Teach young authors how to "hook" readers with this hands-on lesson. By examining novels and developing their own introductions, students will be able to hone their writing skills.

Use a student-friendly glossary and sentence frames to learn about wild weather! Scaffolds will help your students answer text-dependent questions. This lesson can be paired with the main Informational Text: Close Reading lesson.

Strengthen your students' understanding of figurative language by helping them interpret visual puns! Students will use a webpage to help them understand puns in their future reading and writing endeavors.

Nourish your child's inner writer with this lesson on three different forms of literature: poetry, prose, and drama. After going through some examples of each, students will demonstrate their knowledge by filling out bubble maps.

Let's practice reading nonfiction texts! In this lesson, teach your ELs about identifying and describing text features. This lesson can be taught on its own or used as support for the lesson Formatting Text Features.

Use this lesson to help your ELs evaluate the purpose of text features and justify their answers. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support for the lesson Comparing Nonfiction Text Features.

Show and prove! Use this lesson plan and say farewell to fiction reading logs of yore, as your students (literally) draw connections across theme, cause, and effect.

Use this lesson to reinforce using sentence level context clues to decode challenging words in a nonfiction text. This can be used as a stand alone activity or a support the Using Context Clues to Understand Word Meanings lesson.

Introduce your students to some of the major structural elements of poetry in this comprehensive lesson.

This is a great lesson plan to introduce your EL students to the use of illustrations in a story. This can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson What's in a Picture?

Your students may know about Rosa Parks, but do they know about the Montgomery Bus Boycott that her famous action inspired? Enhance students' knowledge of this important part of the Civil Rights movement while teaching cause and effect.

What’s the deal with all of those text features? Use this handy lesson plan to help your second graders answer that very question.

Use this lesson to help your ELs learn key vocabulary terms that they will see in future lessons about the American Revolution. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson A Living Timeline: The American Revolution.

ELs will gain valuable practice learning about text features as they practice close reading and communication skills during a nonfiction picture walk. Use on its own or as a support for the Classifying Nonfiction Text Features lesson plan.

Charts, graphs, and diagrams are complex text features for students to decipher. Use this lesson to familiarize students with these features. It can be taught on its own or before the lesson Charts and Graphs and Diagrams, Oh My!

Penguins are such interesting animals! Help your students practice identifying the main topic and key ideas in a nonfiction text using this fun penguin-themed lesson plan.

Your students’ understanding will reach its peak when they ask detail-seeking questions from observations made about plateaus, mesas, canyons, and buttes. Students will use illustrations and text to assist in their questions and answers.

Students will analyze census data from Sojourner Truth and Walt Disney using past tense verbs and sentence frames. It can be used on its own or as support to the lesson Researching the Past Using Primary Sources.

This fun combination of scavenger hunt and bingo is sure to please young learners. Not only will your students increase their knowledge of text features, they'll also enjoy a selection of engaging games.

Improve your students' comprehension of non-fictional reading through this lesson that teaches them about text features. Students will find their own text features and explain why they aid in the reading process.

Teach your students about picture walks as a strategy to understand the author's purpose in a fictional text. This lesson can be used as a stand-alone lesson or as support for the Examining Author's Purpose in a Fictional Text lesson.

Students will learn about three nonfiction text features: charts, graphs, and diagrams. They will analyze and interpret the information represented in these visual forms and discover how they aid in the comprehension of nonfiction texts.

This lesson will help your students use sentence level context clues to decode challenging words in a nonfiction text. Students will enjoy learning about maps and figuring out tricky words along the way!

In this fun literacy lesson, your ELs will get to review or learn all about the parts of a book! This can be a stand alone or support lesson for the lesson What We Like About Stories.

Use this lesson plan as a stand alone or support lesson to introduce or review nonfiction text features to your ELs.

In this lesson, your students will use guiding questions as a way to organize their thoughts about non-fiction reading. They will also gain an understanding of some of the factors that led to the colonization of the Middle Atlantic States.

This lesson plan can be used as a stand alone or support lesson for Reading Winners to introduce or review concepts of print and parts of a book to your ELs.

Frederick Douglass was an influential black man in U.S. history. In this lesson, the historical context is set for students so that they can conduct their own research on Frederick Douglass, using a graphic organizer and multiple sources, before writing an informational essay on him. Ideal for fourth and fifth grade students, this lesson plan not only gives students practice in research and essay-writing skills, it also has them exploring a fascinating part of our country's history.