Objective: Identify supportive evidence that supports their analysis of a text, including the theme, plot and character development.  Make inferences based drawn from the text and graphics.

Nadia’s parents were recently divorced and Nadia is spending the summer with her father in Florida, where Grandpa Izzy lives. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Lewis Carroll’s poem tells the tale of a walrus and a carpenter who invite a group of oysters to join them for a walk on a sunny beach in the middle of the night. The walk turns out to be a cruel trick as every one of the oysters gets eaten. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this activity, students create a story map to identify the complex elements of plot after reading the novel The Cay.

This lesson provides an opportunity for students to learn and practice the skill of sequencing. Students also improve in comprehension skills, previewing and predicting skills, and drawing conclusions.

This interactive lesson provides students with an opportunity to evaluate how the use of language and wordplay emphasie the theme presented in Shel Silverstein's humorous poem, "Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout, Wouldn't Take the Garbage Out." Students will close read the poem and explain how the use of alliteration, hyperbole, and strong imagery assist in revealing the tone, characters, and theme.

In this lesson, students develop an understanding of setting in literature by first examining where their own life stories are currently set and then imagining what their ideal settings would be.

After an overview of the events surrounding Paul Revere's famous ride, this lesson challenges students to think about the reasons for that fame. Using both primary and secondhand accounts, students compare the account of Revere's ride in Longfellow's famous poem with actual historical events, in order to answer the question: why does Revere's ride occupy such a prominent place in the American consciousness?

This lesson invites students to reconfigure Meg’s journey into a board game where, as in the novel itself, Meg’s progress is either thwarted or advanced by aspects of her emotional responses to situations, her changing sense of self, and her physical and intellectual experiences.

In this lesson, students will use the steps of the writing process (brainstorming, drafting, revising, proofreading, and publishing) to write original and, in small groups, perform their fables as skits. Students will also review the elements of a fable, such as theme, in order to create original written fables of their own.

In this lesson, students take on the role of the director of a movie. After exploring cinematic terms, students read a literary work with director's eyes. This lesson uses Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl as an example; however, the activities can be completed with any matched movie and piece of literature (e.g., any of the Harry Potter books, A Series of Unfortunate Events, or The Polar Express).

During the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, Reuven is forced to sell Zlateh, the family goat, because business has been bad. On his way to the butcher, Aaron (Reuven's son) and Zlateh get caught in a terrible snowstorm, and after finding shelter in a haystack, they develop a deeper bond and interdependence. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this multi-session lesson, students use computers or digital readers to read and respond to e-books. Students learn how to use e-book tools and features to support their reading processes. In particular, they insert digital notes into a book to record their thoughts and ideas in response to the text. Whole-class and small-group discussions about different types of responses encourage students to broaden their response repertoire. At the end of the lesson, students review their digital notes and fill out handouts that help them reflect on the value of the e-book reading experience and the subsequent response process.