In this lesson, students will use the Quote-Sandwich-organizer to arrange their chosen information/quotes about overfishing and fish-depletion into a paragraph that could be used in their informative consumer-guide.

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.

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?

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

This lesson plan, The Power of Freedom, focuses on Dr. Martin Luther King’s most well-known and frequently taught classic works, like “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream.” Students read and discuss the themes in both works and connect to events in their lives today.

This resource is a nonfiction, Common Core aligned reading passage with textual analysis questions about main idea and supporting details. Also incuded are mutiple choice textual analysis questions.

RAFT is a writing strategy that helps students understand their role as a writer, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the topic they'll be writing about. By using this strategy, teachers encourage students to write creatively, to consider a topic from a different perspective, and to gain practice writing for different audiences. Students learn to respond to a writing prompt that requires them to think about various perspectives.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade English Language Arts. 

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade ELA.

In this lesson, students will examine the various social classes and learn about the critical role that slaves, freemen, and plebeians played in the day-to-day operations of the Roman Empire. Students will learn about the various social classes and the life experiences of people from these classes. As a final activity, students will complete a creative writing assignment that addresses how the Roman class system and the use of slavery may have ultimately contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire. Video link: http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/index.html - Go to For Educators and follow links to free video clips. The Slaves and Freemen link is broken. Use this: http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/slaves_freemen.html

The selection is about Ghana, an ancient culture that was one of Africa’s great trading empires in the third century A.D. Gold mines, extensive trading, and advanced farming villages all contributed to the rise and success of Ghana. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments. Includes printable copies of text.

Students will use scaffolding to research and organize information for writing a research paper. A research paper scaffold provides students with clear support for writing expository papers that include a question (problem), literature review, analysis, methodology for original research, results, conclusion, and references. Students examine informational text, use an inquiry-based approach, and practice genre-specific strategies for expository writing.

This teachers guide for Searching for Silverheels by Jeannie Mobley includes a prereading activity, discussion questions, and writing and research activities for after reading.

Selective Highlighting/Underlining is used to help students organize what they have read by selecting what is important. This strategy teaches students to highlight/underline ONLY the key words, phrases, vocabulary, and ideas that are central to understanding the reading.

In this lesson, students will learn about the geography and topography of China and surrounding countries, discover how ideas, cultures, and goods were exchanged through the Silk Road, relate the ideas of trade and globalization to today, and then write a travel journal entry as if they were a participant in trade along the Silk Road.

This teachers guide for Somewhere There is Still a Sun by Michael Gruenbaum with Todd Hasak-Lowy includes discussion questions and prompts for interpretation for each part of the book, assignments and worksheets, ideas to integrate visual media, and writing assignment ideas.

Some of the most the most essential works of literature in the world are examples of epic poetry, such as The Odyssey and Paradise Lost. This lesson introduces students to the epic poem form and to its roots in oral tradition.

Mr. and Mrs. Lacey and their daughter, Doris, are stranded at home following a severe winter storm. Doris notices an abandoned puppy on the snowy road and brings it indoors. Doris forms a bond with the puppy and is heartbroken when the time comes for her father to take it away. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Summarizing teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points for more concise understanding. Upon reading a passage, summarizing helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate important details that support them. It is a technique that enables students to focus on key words and phrases of an assigned text that are worth noting and remembering.

In the summer of 1988, fires raged out of control in Yellowstone National Park. Though it seemed like total devastation to outsiders, the fires burned in only one-third of the park, and the new growth that resulted promoted the flourishing of certain birds, animals, and plants. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.