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.

Once students have selected a topic related to a piece of literature they have read and mapped out their argument, this lesson will help them turn their prewriting into an essay.

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

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.

Sometimes looking inside a word can help determine the meaning just like using context clues! In this lesson, students will learn to use roots and affixes as clues to the meaning of a word.

In this lesson, ask students to compare and contrast two important African-American historical figures. Students will write an informational paragraph on the similarities and differences between W.E.B. Du Bois and George Washington Carver.

In this lesson, students will engage in inquiry, a powerful mindfulness practice to work with judgements about oneself and others.

There's no shortage of homographs in the English language, making them a fun topic to explore with your fourth graders! In this lesson, students will become experts on distinguishing the different meanings of homographs.

In this lesson, students will practice identifying the subject and predicate of a sentence and making predictions with textual evidence as they read short fictional texts. Use it as a stand alone lesson or as a precursor to What's Next?

This lesson gives your students practice researching an inventor to write an informative essay. Students will use a graphic organizer to take notes on the research they conduct in the library or on the internet.

Teach your students to ask and differentiate between recall questions and inferential questions. This lesson will help build a classroom culture around asking deep, inferential questions.

This lesson helps your ELs identify the role of coordinating conjunctions and compound sentences in nonfiction texts. Use it as a stand-alone lesson or as a pre-lesson to Nonfiction Genres.

Young readers will love this story-filled reading comprehension lesson. It's packed with engaging exercises designed to help students become better at looking for details and annotating passages of text.

Teach your class to develop strong inferencing skills by focusing on clues and hard evidence. In this lesson, students will play a game of “What’s for Breakfast?” to help them link context clues with word meaning.

Arts and crafts, Venn diagrams, and literature all come together as students compare and contrast stories. Opportunities for student creativity are endless!

Your ELs will compare and contrast two similar stories while strengthening their grammar skills related to noun and pronoun agreement in this lesson. Use it as a stand-alone lesson or as a precursor to the lesson Venn Diagram Collage.

Use this lesson to help your ELs compare and contrast supporting characters from excerpted texts. It can be a stand-alone lesson or support the lesson Understanding Character Traits, Understanding Plot Lesson Part III.

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.

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.

Teach your students to edit peer writing with a three-step process that will improve their writing skills and overall confidence. In this lesson, students will practice editing short pieces of writing using specific criteria.

Get your students excited about geography with a lesson on Earth's oceans. After reading two different texts, they'll be ready to dive right into ocean paragraph writing.

Did you know that comparative tasks improve comprehension and help students develop higher order thinking skills? In this lesson, students will compare nonfiction texts on the same topic using Venn diagrams and performance!

What if Cinderella’s stepsisters weren’t really evil? In this engaging lesson, you will introduce your students to multiple points of view and discuss how these different perspectives can change a reader’s experience.

In this lesson, your students will explore the library in search of various genres of nonfiction texts. Teach this lesson at the beginning of the year to familiarize your students with the structure and organization of the library.

Students will learn how to identify story elements and create a short and sweet summary. They will fill out a graphic organizer and solidify their understanding by creating illustrations to show major plot points that they find themselves!

Encourage your students to translate their understanding of theme to poetry. In this lesson, students will evaluate the theme of poems by sketching pictures and citing text evidence.

Help your students absorb the details of a text and make inferences about what they read with the strategy of close reading. By reading closely, students will become better able to understand complex themes and nuances in a text.

That’s right! The theme applies to everyone! Use this interactive lesson to teach your students how to find the theme of a fictional text.