This lesson plan uses graphic organizers to help students create podcasts/ radio broadcasts using a Natural Inquirer article.

Have you ever wondered how to get students talking meaningfully about books? The Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) strategy helps students identify questions as "in the book" or "in my head" so that they know whether to draw on their own impressions or the book for answers. In this lesson, which can also be used in the sixth-grade classroom, introduce QAR through a read-aloud, sorting questions as they are answered and working with students as they learn how to sort questions themselves. Students then use the strategy to develop questions for a peer-led book discussion.

This lesson, Nonviolent Resistance, focuses on Dr. Martin Luther King's, “The Sword that Heals,” and asks student to listen to interviews with veterans of the freedom struggle as they discuss the role of nonviolent direct action.

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.

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.

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.

In this five activity, multi-day lesson, students will establish and sequence evidence-based claims as premises for a coherent, logical argument around a position related to the unit's issue.

In this lesson, students will use a collaborative process to develop and strengthen their writing in which they use clear criteria and their close reading skills in text-centered discussions about their emerging drafts.

The PQP technique—Praise–Question–Polish—requires group members to take a turn reading their drafts aloud as the other students follow along with copies. This oral reading helps the writer to hear the piece in another voice and to identify possible changes independently.

Students will watch and discuss video clips that show how two men in Chile coped with being prisoners in concentration camps during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Each student will then create a non-fiction picture book that tells the story of one of these men and provides historical context.

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

This lesson uses the postmodern picture book Black and White, by David Macaulay, to engage students in a deep analysis of writer's craft. Macaulay's book presents four separate story lines that playfully interact with one another throughout the text. Students explore ways in which authors use words and illustrations to create unexpected plots and connections within a text.

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.

Inclusion is an important concept in that it promotes equity and equality in the classroom. Students learn to work together despite their differences, capitalizing on their strengths and minimizing their deficits. Students within the school will be educated about the importance of inclusion, collaborating to complete activities and advocating for a school-wide inclusion program that involves all students, teachers and administrators.

This lesson examines the benefits and challenges the Nile brought to the people of ancient Egypt. First, students discuss what problems the United States faces today to compare historical and contemporary events. This helps students to understand continuity and change in societies . Then they read and discuss an article on the problems and promises that the Nile River posed to ancient Egypt. This shows how different physical features influence developments in societies.

In this lesson, students will read and analyze several examples of different texts, identifying the different genres represented in each. Students brainstorm alone and together what they need as readers to read and understand multigenre texts successfully. Students share findings and discuss strategies needed to comprehend, and by extension to write, these texts.

In this lesson, students will continue to research and summarize text, using a Researcher's Notebook.

In this lesson, students will begin preparing for research by focusing on paraphrasing and how to elaborate with detail.

Literature circles are a way to engage students in reading by selecting texts to read and discuss with peers. Instead of traditional literature circle roles, use question stems as a way to spark discussion. These question stems build in the complexity of thinking required. Reflection questions are included for debriefing after the small group discussion.