The students will explore reading strategies using the think-aloud process as students investigate connections between the life and writings of Edgar Allan Poe. The unit, which begins with an in-depth exploration of “The Raven,” then moves students from a full-class reading of the poem to small-group readings of Poe’s short stories (“The Black Cat,” “Hop-Frog,” “Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”). The unit concludes with individual projects that explore the readings in more detail.

Using the supernatural powers of The Monkey's Paw, the Whites make a wish for money, receive the money after their son is involved in a fatal accident, wish for his return, and finally wish for his disappearance. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs is what is known as a classic short story. Before completing this lesson, students should have explored, read and analyzed story elements of The Monkey's Paw. Students will use the Sphero Bolt to reflect specific moments of the selected characters journey throughout the story.

A teachers guide for My Sisters' Voices: Teenage Girls of Color Speak Out by Iris Jacob including questions for deeper comprehension, exercises for the class, and suggestions for further reading.

The poem describes the victorious homecoming of a ship. The Captain responsible for the safe return of his ship and crew has died before reaching port, and the narrator is grief stricken at the loss. While acknowledging the greatness of the victorious return of the ship to port, the poem also laments the loss of the leader responsible. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This lesson takes advantage of that interest by asking students to create a soundtrack for a novel that they have read. Students begin by analyzing how specific songs might fit with a familiar story. Students then create their own soundtracks for the movie version of a novel they have read. They select songs that match the text and fit specific events in the story. Finally, students share their projects with the class and assess their work using a rubric. Examples in this lesson focus on The Beast by Walter Dean Myers, but any piece of literature can be used as the basis of students' soundtracks.

The sonnet begins with the speaker stating that the earth’s poetry never dies. In summer, the grasshopper runs among the hedgerows singing his song and then rests in the shade. In the frosty silence of winter, the earth's poetry continues now the cricket, singing from the stove, shrills a song that's as warm and summery as the grasshopper's music. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The poem Oranges by Gary Soto is about the bittersweet experience of a first date. They walk together to the drug store and girl picks a chocolate that costs a dime. The boy offers to pay for the candy with a nickel and an orange. The boy takes the girl's hand and then releases it so she can unwrap her chocolate, and he can peel his orange. In the darkness of the winter day, the orange burns bright light a fire, much like the love in his heart. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students read the novel "Out of the Dust" and create charts, answer questions, and take an assessment to demonstrate their understanding.

The Paragraph Shrinking strategy allows each student to take turns reading, pausing, and summarizing the main points of each paragraph. Students provide each other with feedback as a way to monitor comprehension.

A narrator recounts the story of Paul Revere’s ride, which took place in Massachusetts on April 18, 1775. On that night, Revere tells his friend to hang a lantern in the belfry of the Old North Church if the British forces begin to march—one light if they are coming by land, two if they are coming by sea. We know the rest—the minutemen routed the redcoats. He also says that we will hear Revere’s cry of defiance throughout history. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The text begins with a poor fisherman, Kino, his wife, Juana, their baby Coyotito, and the great pearl. When Coyotito is stung by a scorpion, Kino and Juana travel from their village to take him to the nearest doctor. However, they are unable to pay for treatment and are turned away. But once they have a large pearl in their possession, the greedy doctor makes a house call, hoping to get a share of the profits. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Students will practice visualizing and understanding that visualization is an important comprehension strategy. Students will share their visualization of the story through original artwork.

This lesson is one part of a four lesson unit on Shakespeare Stealer. This theater and language arts lesson offers intellectual, creative and interpretive opportunities. Students will analyze and compare the puns and word play in selected scenes from the plays, The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary L. Blackwood and Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Students will then read scenes from each play in groups and interpret their meanings to prepare for a performance of the scene. The lesson culminates with students writing a short essay explaining how the playwrights used puns and word play to give their characters wit.

Behind many of the apparently simple stories of Robert Frost's poems are unexpected questions and mysteries. In this lesson, students analyze what speakers include or omit from their narrative accounts, make inferences about speakers' motivations, and find evidence for their inferences in the words of the poem.

This is a lesson guide for "Cat!, Silver and Your World". In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Lesson guides for :Concrete, Harlem Night Song" and "The City is So Big". In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Lesson guides for "Old Man, Runagate Runagate" and "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind". In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Poets achieve popular acclaim only when they express clear and widely shared emotions with a forceful, distinctive, and memorable voice. But what is meant by voice in poetry, and what qualities have made the voice of Langston Hughes a favorite for so many people?

Power Notes is a strategy that teaches students an efficient form of organizing information from assigned text. This technique provides students a systematic way to look for relationships within material they are reading. Power Notes help visually display the differences between main ideas and supportive information in outline form. Main ideas or categories are assigned a power 1 rating. Details and examples are assigned power 2s, 3s, or 4s.