Look at history! In this lesson, guide students through an exploration of the context, causes, and effects of the Transcontinental Railroad, and help them practice identifying the main idea and supporting details in a nonfiction text.

Use this lesson to teach your students to describe the similarities between stories with words that signal comparison. This lesson can stand-alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the The Same or Different? You Decide! lesson.

Use this lesson to help your ELs quickly find information on a specific topic by looking for a noun and its pronouns in a nonfiction text. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support for the lesson Ecosystems Explained.

Bram Stoker's Dracula has inspired feelings of fear and morbid curiosity for over a century. With this lesson plan, your students will get a taste of the literary work while learning about the myth behind vampires.

Cats are the best! Pizza is better! My teacher rules! In Fact or Opinion: Part 1, your students will combine reading and writing to learn about the differences between facts and opinions and how those differences are communicated.

Mae Jemison was the first African American female astronaut to enter space! Use this lesson plan to help your students get to know this prominent scientist, and determine what makes her an influencial person.

This lesson focuses on how punctuation affects reading fluency and comprehension using graphic organizers and sentence stems. Use this lesson as a stand-alone activity or a support for the Punctuation and Prosody lesson plan.

In this lesson, you will read the heartwarming story of Bun Bun Button by Patricia Polacco to your class. Students will then use their own reading skills to describe the two main characters in the story.

ELs will get a chance to practice their listening and reading comprehension skills as they answer questions about the key details in a read-aloud text. Use as a stand-alone or pre-lesson for the Questions for Comprehension lesson plan.

Reading can be a rollercoaster with its ups and downs! Use this lesson that features a rollercoaster-themed story map to teach your students about story structure and how to use a graphic organizer to visualize it.

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.

Use this lesson to teach your students about the lives of 10 important leaders during the suffrage movement. Children will read a picture book that highlights 10 leaders who strove to win the right to vote for American women. Children will then work in groups to research and learn more about these inspiring women who dreamed big and never gave up. Finally, students will share their findings with the rest of the class.

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!

Marie Curie’s monumental achievements in chemistry and physics are remarkable. In this lesson, your students will read two accounts of her life, integrate the details, and assess the importance of having more than one source of information.

Help your students' story telling abilities grow with this lesson that helps them recount what happened in a story and has them point out key details.

Anansi invites his friend Turtle to dinner at his house ... but does he treat him like a friend? In this reading comprehension lesson, your class practices questioning, retelling, and identifying the moral in "Anansi and the Turtle."

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.

In this lesson, Significance of "Let Freedom Ring" in MLK, Jr.'s Speech, students will be able to understand the allusion Martin Luther King, Jr. makes to the song "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Have students discuss allusions in this speech.

Every great reader and writer knows that syntax matters. During this lesson, students will use the close reading strategy to focus on word choice, and use their understanding of syntax to develop theories about patterns in the text.

Use this lesson to help your ELs understand details in a sentence by identifying conditional phrases. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson Comparing Primary and Secondary Sources.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a 17th century writer and philosopher who today is considered one of the first documented feminists and advocates for women’s education. In this lesson, students will read two nonfiction texts about Sor Juana and discuss her life and accomplishments before writing an opinion piece about her.

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.

All fictional stories have story elements but they sure can differ between stories. In this lesson, students will compare and contrast the story elements of two fictional stories and document their findings in a graphic organizer.

This lesson will have your students learn to compare and contrast using both a classic fairy tale and a fractured versions of a fairy tale.

Story elements help to bring beloved fairy tales to life in this literacy lesson. Your students will learn to identify the title, author, setting, characters, problem, and solution in a fiction text.

In this lesson plan, students will discuss characteristics of a hero and how to get information from texts to understand why a person is considered a hero. Partner discussions will help students have a deeper understanding.