This cross-curricular resource contains a primary source text on the Civil War, along with text-dependent questions, an academic vocabulary list, and a writing prompt that goes along with the text, including student responses. Students read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address independently, then as a class before beginning work.

In this informational text, elementary school readers learn about the difference between weather and climate and about components of the climate system. The text can be used to practice visualizing and other comprehension strategies. Available in K-2 and 3-5 grade bands and as an illustrated book as well as a text document, the story appears in the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle.

The ability to ask and answer questions while reading is essential to comprehension. This article discusses instructional strategies used to teach questioning and provides many online resources. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which explores the seven essential principles of the climate sciences for teachers in k-grade 5 classrooms.

This article reprints and links to informational text about the adaptations that allow mammals and fish to survive in polar oceans. Versions are available for students in grades K-1, 2-3 and 4-5. Related science and literacy activities are included.

Australian Aboriginal art is one of the oldest continuing art traditions in the world. Much of the most important knowledge of aboriginal society was conveyed through different kinds of storytelling—including narratives that were spoken, performed as dances or songs, and those that were painted. In this lesson students will learn about the Aboriginal storytelling tradition through the spoken word and through visual culture. They will have the opportunity to hear stories of the Dreamtime told by the Aboriginal people, as well as to investigate Aboriginal storytelling in contemporary dot paintings.

This mini-assessment asks students to read a text and view a short video, then answer text-dependent questions about them. Also included is an optional constructed-response prompt for the students.

A new instructional model, called Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI), is introduced to elementary teachers in this article. The author shows how school librarians and classroom teachers can collaborate to help students construct and communicate evidence, or arguments. Evidence buckets, a collaborative activity, and related online resources are presented. The article appears in the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured around the seven essential principles of climate literacy.

In this lesson from Expeditionary Learning, students will imagine themselves in the role of the main characters of That Book Woman by Heather Henson. They will discover the motivations of the characters through role-playing and investigating the illustrations in the text. Students will use an informational text to investigate why it might be difficult to get books to people, as it was in That Book Woman. This is Lesson 1 of 17 from the Grade 3 Curriculum Map Unit 3, Module 1: http://engageny.org/resource/grade-3-ela-module-1-unit-3 .

Students describe environmental and herditary factors that increase the chance of developing cancer.

Text features is an important part of the English Language Arts informational writing curriculum. Students need to know to look for captions in nonfiction text and read them for help with understanding the text.

Students learn the linguistic strategies Achebe uses to convey the Igbo and British missionary cultures presented in the novel and how the text combines European linguistic and literary forms with African oral traditions.

This lesson provides students with tools to analyze primary source newspaper articles about the Great War (1914"“1917) in order to understand public opinion regarding the U.S. entry into the war from multiple perspectives.

Common Lit is a searchable collection of free fiction and nonfiction texts searchable by thematic connection, subject, discussion questions or text. Please note in order to access the entire site you will need to create a free account.

Witness the unfolding drama of the Constitutional Convention and the contributions of those whom we have come to know as the Founding Fathers. In this lesson, students will become familiar with four important, but relatively unknown, contributors to the U.S. Constitution Convention: Oliver Ellsworth, Alexander Hamilton, William Paterson, and Edmund Randolph.

This lesson plan is the fourth in the "Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community" series.It provides a video of the poet, Edward Hirsch, offering a little backstory, then reading the poem "Cotton Candy." The companion lesson contains a sequence of activities for use with secondary students before, during, and after reading to help them enter and experience the poem.

Heavily influenced by social and scientific theories, including those of Darwin, writers of naturalism described"”usually from a detached or journalistic perspective"”the influence of society and surroundings on the development of the individual. In the following lesson plan, students will learn the key characteristics that comprise American literary naturalism as they explore London's "To Build a Fire" and Crane's "The Open Boat."

This article discusses how creating Readers Theater scripts from informational text can improve fluency and build comprehension.

This informational text introduces students to the dinosaurs found near the polar regions and discusses the adaptations that allowed these dinosaurs to survive in a dark and cold environment. The text is written at a kindergarten through grade one reading level. This version is a full-color PDF that can be printed, cut and folded to form a book. Each book contains color photographs and illustrations.

The 11th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 11th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Students move from learning the class rituals and routines and genre features of argument writing in Unit 11.1 to learning about narrative and informational genres in Unit 11.2: The American Short Story. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

Evaluating has been called one of the six most important reading comprehension strategies. In this article, it is also considered as a strategy for analyzing and interpreting data. This professional development article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which integrates science education and literacy instruction for K-grade 5 teachers. Each issue examines one of the recognized essential principles of climate literacy and the climate sciences and one or more reading strategies for elementary teachers and their students.