Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a technique that teaches students to work cooperatively on a reading assignment to promote better comprehension. CSR learning logs are used to help students keep track of learning during the collaboration process. Students think about what they are reading and write down questions/reflections about their learning. The completed logs then provide a guide for follow-up activities and evaluation methods.

A concept map help students visualize various connections between words or phrases and a main idea. There are several types of concept maps; some are hierarchical, while others connect information without categorizing ideas. Most are comprised of words or phrases surrounded by a circle or square that connect to one another and ultimately back to the main idea through graphic lines. These lines help students to "negotiate meaning" as they read and make the meaning connections between the main idea and other information.

In this lesson, students use the Cornell notes tool to do close reading of informational text.

This teacher's guide for The Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman contains a summary of the text, discussion questions, activities, and research assignments.

The following unit incorporates multimedia and classroom activities to encourage students to explore and interact with poetry by first writing letters to important historical poets as practice for writing letters to the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors, a group that represents poetry in America at its best.

A group of discussion questions for Ishmael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

This resource contains a set of discussion questions for The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

This teacher's guide for Doll Bones by Holly Black contains a prereading activity, discussion questions, and postreading assignments.

Students will read the story, Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold and compare thier own lives with that of a girl in a tenement builidng in New York City. Through reading the story, students will better understand the hopes and dreams of the less fortunate.

Student will predict ideas or events that may take place in the text, give rationale for predictions, confirm and discuss predictions as the story progresses.

This story is set in a Tennessee peach orchard on the night before the Civil War battle of Shiloh. A young drummer briefly considers staying behind when the fighting begins. Then a man walks by and stops to talk, and the boy discovers that this man is his general. From their discussion, the boy arrives at a new understanding about his role in the battle to come. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, the students will get practice in reading and writing habits that they have been working with throughout the curriculum, in this case using poetry.

As a way to support teachers with English Language Arts (ELA) instruction during the pandemic, the NCDPI ELA team created choice boards featuring standards-aligned ELA activities.The intended purpose of these choice boards is to provide a way for students to continue standards-based learning while schools are closed. Each activity can be adapted and modified to be completed with or without the use of digital tools. Many activities can also be repeated with different texts. These standards-based activities are meant to be a low-stress approach to reinforcing and enriching the skills learned during the 2019-2020 school year. The choice boards are to be used flexibly by teachers, parents, and students in order to meet the unique needs of each learner.Exploration activities are provided for a more self-directed or guided approach to independent learning for students. These activities and sites should be used as a way to explore concepts, topics, skills, and social and emotional competencies that interest the learner. 

In this lesson, teachers can engage students in chapter by chapter discussions of Crow by Barbara Wright that encourage critical reading and higher order thinking. The numerous activity options provided allow students to creatively explore the fictional life of the characters as they relate to the 1898 Wilmington Race Riots through group work, drama, art, creative writing, deliberation, examination of primary source documents, and more.

This presentation is intended for use with the lesson "Exploring Life in 1898 Wilmington and the Wilmington Race Riot with CROW." In this lesson, teachers can engage students in chapter by chapter discussions of Crow by Barbara Wright that encourage critical reading and higher order thinking. The numerous activity options provided allow students to creatively explore the fictional life of the characters as they relate to the 1898 Wilmington Race Riots through group work, drama, art, creative writing, deliberation, examination of primary source documents, and more.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the genre of folktales and engage in a study of several Russian folktales. They are asked to read the tales aloud, and then to fill in a chart about each one. Next, they analyze the charts, answering questions about the folktales’ setting, main characters, and "uniquely Russian" attributes. They also compare and contrast Russian folktales with folktales they may have heard as young children. The lesson culminates with a writing assignment in which students will analyze the folktales or create their own.

In this lesson the students will be using a variety of skills to analyze fiction and expository texts. This combines the reading of detective fiction with written expository analysis in the form of a Detective’s Handbook. Each student reads a detective mystery, and the class watches and analyzes Murder She Purred to establish a collective example.

This page contains a set of general discussion questions for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

This page contains a set of reading question for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

In this lesson students will use fables to determine the moral or central theme of a piece of writing. Students then create their own personal fables editing for grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.