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.

Let's learn about natural disasters. After reading through some informational texts, students will use their close reading skills to answer questions about different types of disasters.

This is a lesson about the immigration procedures at Ellis Island. Students will learn about the process and creatively write about what it was like for immigrants to pass through Ellis Island.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.