Text formatting can add a lot of richness to how information is explained. In this lesson students will explore the organization of nonfiction texts and go on a scavenger hunt for different kinds of text formatting features.

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

Characters, settings, and events, oh my! In this lesson, students will dig deeper into each of these components and learn to provide specific details from their texts.

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.

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.

Your students will practice searching for clues to uncover the main idea and supporting details in nonfiction texts about John Muir and Day of the Dead traditions around the world.

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.

Roll up your sleeves and get out the magnifying glasses! In this lesson, your students will practice finding supportive details and examples in informational texts.

Imagery is one of the most important tools in a narrative writer's arsenal. In this lesson, students will will learn to craft vivid scenes by selecting powerful verbs and adjectives, as well as to critique descriptive writing using the same criteria.

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.

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.

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.

Use this lesson to help your ELs strengthen their vocabulary and learn how to create a personal timeline. Teach this lesson as a standalone lesson or use it as support for the lesson Timelines and Nonfiction Text.

In this lesson, your students will go through the writing process to write about their perfect pets and then make a 3-D version of this pet, mount the final draft, and display it.

Students will have a blast creating their own cartoons and comics. This lesson provides an engaging method to help students demonstrate the use of quotation marks when writing.

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.

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.

So your students are going to write a narrative? Use these prewriting exercises to help them choose an idea and plan out their story.

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.

If young writers can learn how to write a solid paragraph, then they have the building blocks of an essay. In this lesson, students will study paragraph structure and practice organizing ideas into paragraphs.