Franklin R. Chang-Diaz is an immigrant from Costa Rica who began thinking about space at age seven when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space. After going through many obstacles he was accepted to NASA and became “the first Hispanic to be in the space program for the long run". In this CCSS lesson, students will explore his story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments; writing samples included.

Students will read scientific text about top predators in Arctic marine ecosystems and how they may be affected by global climate change. Students will work individually or collaboratively to write a report based on the scientific text they have read and participate in a large-group discussion session based on their analysis.

Two female cousins spend their life doing everything together. One night they realize they are both in love with the Moon and wish to marry him. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

6th grade students were introduced to hardships around the world through literature. Students selected a topic they were interested in and researched that topic. Then they collaborated with a team of peers and created a tri-fold poster board display about their topic. These were displayed in the media center and parents and other classes were invited to come in. The guests of the exposition were encouraged to ask the teams questions about their topics, allowing the students to further demonstrate the knowledge and passion they had for their topic. The guests also voted on the teams that had the best information and the most knowledge about their topic.

This unit develops students’ abilities to analyze arguments from a range of perspectives on energy and hydraulic fracturing. Students also learn to develop, write and revise their own evidence-based arguments.

This resource contains a selection of different graphic organizers for students to use.

This expository text selection outlines the efforts of the Chinese people to build the Great Wall to protect them from the Mongol invaders and describes how the wall led to the eventual fall of the empire. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

A majority of students in grades 4 to 6 are beyond decoding instruction and need more assistance with comprehension to help them become successful, independent readers. Strategic reading allows students to monitor their own thinking and make connections between texts and their own experiences. Based on the Guided Comprehension Model developed by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson introduces students to the comprehension strategy of making connections. Students learn the three types of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world) using a double-entry journal. They also learn about the life of Cesar Chavez and his work to promote civil rights.

In this excerpt, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson overcomes the initial hurdles of survival in the Canadian wilderness. As he wards off fears from his earlier encounter with a bear, Brian faces off with a porcupine in the dark of night. Realizing that self-pity would get him nowhere, Brian figures out how to use his hatchet and natural materials to start a fire. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments; writing samples included.

This article explains how to model a range of prewriting techniques and introduces several mnemonics to help students organize their writing.

In this reflective essay, Chief Dan George compares his native North American culture with that of white culture. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this essay through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students work on narrowing a topic for an expository writing piece, conducting research, and creating source cards.

In this lesson, students explore, examine, and evaluate information for a research topic, and develop an organizational pattern for writing.

In this lesson, students test a variety of insulators and relate their knowledge to energy conservation. With teacher guidance, students design their own investigation. After all experiments are completed, the class looks across the data and draws evidence-based conclusions.

Assess students' understanding of scientific inquiry including the following skills: observation, background research, scientific procedures (including investigation design, measurement techniques, and error analysis), data collection, data display, scientific questions, formulating an hypothesis. Students will design and carry out an investigation to test which material is the best insulator; they will predict which way heat energy will flow in a system and analyze the flow of energy in a system from one point to another and from one form to another.

In this lesson, students read a non-fiction book about a career and write a six-paragraph expository composition about the book.

Jackie Robinson: Justice at Last is the story of two brave men who changed the course of history in sports. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments; writing samples included.

Students will work collaboratively to gather information about various groups of gelatinous zooplankton. They will be able to compare and contrast at least three different groups of zooplankton organisms and describe how gelatinous zooplankton fit into marine food webs. Groups will prepare a brief written report summarizing the information they have found and orally present to the rest of the class.

In this lesson, students compare and contrast the tragic event that occurs in a work of fiction to a real-life tragic experience that occurs in a work of non-fiction.