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.

Give your ELs concrete experience with adverbs and adverbial phrases as a tool to discover details in nonfiction texts. Use this as a stand-alone lesson or as support to the Hey! What's the Big Idea? lesson.

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.

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.

Every name has a story behind it. This lesson allows students to share the story of their name with their classmates. Not only is it fun, it's ideal for establishing a respectful classroom community.

Students often understand the basic conventions of writing, but may need support in incorporating these skills into their work. In this lesson, students will review some of the more common capitalization and punctuation errors and apply their editing skills to real writing.

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.

Understanding the big idea of a nonfiction text and being able to write a succinct summary are key fourth grade skills. This lesson focuses on summarizing a nonfiction passage in 3-4 sentences.

Understanding the big idea of a nonfiction text and being able to write a succinct summary are key fourth grade skills. This lesson focuses on summarizing a nonfiction passage in three to four sentences.

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.

In this lesson, students will identify nouns and pronouns as they distinguish between the main idea and supporting details. It may be taught on its own or used as support for the lesson Compare and Contrast Texts on the Same Topic.

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.

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.