In this lesson, students work in groups using subject area textbooks to locate word with specific word parts (prefixes, roots, suffixes) in order to better comprehend the word meaning.

A young Bedouin girl has earned the nickname Nadia the Willful because of her quick temper. Her brother, Hamed, is the only one who can tame her temper. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments; writing samples included.

Improve student vocabulary with this large collection of student NYT crossword puzzles with answer keys. Search by topics including Black History Month, The Declaration of Independence, The Great Depression,
The Cold War, The Great Recession, American Labor History, Hispanic Heritage, The Pilgrims and much, much more.

Use literacy skills to make connections among those in your classroom with this lesson that focuses on building classroom community by sharing favorite texts with one another. In this lesson, the class explores environmental print then focuses specifically on a teacher-created display on a favorite book. After exploring the teacher’s display, students write about their own favorite book, genre, or author. Students then select one of several options for making a display of their favorite book to share with the class. After creating their own presentations, students share them with the class and complete peer- or self-assessments.

Although Danny is a young adult of only 17, he is fully capable of taking his father’s boat out to sea to fish. While out on a solo trip one foggy morning, Danny encounters “something” mysterious in the water. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, after being introduced to the novel Out of the Dust, students examine unfamiliar words and phrases and interpret them using context and word structure, making inferences and generalizations, using graphic organizers and comparing and contrasting skills.

When the land surveyor, Gleb Smirnov, arrives in the Gnilushka train station, he hires a peasant to take him to the estate that he must survey. This story shows how the reactions of one character, due to his fear, can lead to unexpected consequences and have a direct impact on the actions of the other character(s). In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students practice effective word choice, uses of dialect, and sensory or figurative language in poetry.

In this lesson, students create games of their choice to be played with the class to reinforce their knowledge of prefixes.

In this lesson, students study personification in published works of poetry, then create their own.

In this lesson, students work in cooperative groups to find poems that exemplify the characteristics of word choice, dialect, invented words, concrete terms, abstract terms, sensory language, figurative language, sentence structure, line length, and rhythm.

For this lesson, students deliver an oral, informative presentation on a favorite poem that the he/she has artistically illustrated with images, title, author's name, and words of poem on a clay flowerpot, effectively communicating ideas and feelings about the poem.

This poetry lesson uses "Manatee/Humanity" to help students develop skills of noticing (seeing, hearing, and feeling) in relationship to poetry.

Possible Sentences is a pre-reading vocabulary strategy that activates students' prior knowledge about content area vocabulary and concepts. Before reading, students are provided a short list of vocabulary words from their reading, which they group and eventually use to create meaningful sentences. After reading, students check to see if their "possible sentences" were accurate or need revising.

In this second activity based on Ken Burn's Mark Twain, students will consider examples of Twain's vernacular storytelling through his pictures of race relations and the lives of African Americans in his time.

In this lesson, students will read two articles from different authors that provide additional information about DDT, increasing their knowledge and skills for expanding vocabulary and improving understanding.

In this lesson, students identify some basic terms associated with boats, ships, and sailing. Students will also use expressions derived from nautical sayings in context.

In this lesson, students will learn how to identify and use prefixes and suffixes to determine word meanings and aid in understanding the text.

In this lesson, students will continue to build ways to determine word meaning, utilizing dictionaries and the thesaurus to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.