Panchito, a young migrant worker, lives life with his family on the circuit—a cycle of seasonal crop harvesting. Each move on the circuit is signaled by the appearance of cardboard boxes, which hold all the family’s possessions. 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 citizenship and government in Athens through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

After their car crashes in a blizzard and their parents are injured, Danielle and Jake must climb to a weather station near the top of a mountain to get help for themselves and their family. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Students investigate picture books organized in comparison/contrast structures to discover methods of organization (usually a combination of the point-by-point, whole-to-whole, or similarities-to-differences patterns) and the ways authors use transitions to guide readers. Students can then decide what organizational patterns and transitional words work best to accomplish their individual purposes in writing and apply those to their papers.

Worksheets and lessons on the correct use of prepositions for various reading levels.

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

Students will review and identify personal pronouns and code the Dash robot to move toward each personal pronoun on the grid mat.

In this lesson, students try their hand at creative descriptions of characters, learn new vocabulary words that allow for more precise descriptions, and practice using simile and metaphor. After analyzing sample character descriptions, students choose a picture (from a print or online source) and write a vivid description of its subject. Students engage in peer editing, rewrite their descriptions, and post them on the classroom walls for a matching game. Students read one another’s paragraphs, make note of favorite descriptive words and comparisons, and find a matching set (description and picture) to share with the class.

This story is about a dinosaur find in New Mexico and after many years of information, the paleontologist attempts to persuade the reader about what happened to kill the dinosaur. In order to do so the author gives many ideas and theories but by evaluating evidence, narrows it down to one. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments; writing samples included.

"The Dog of Pompeii" centers on a blind boy, Tito, and his dog, Bimbo, his life-long devoted companion during A.D. 79 in the city of Pompeii. Bimbo is crucial to Tito’s survival because and during the course of the story, a volcano erupts and causes mass panic and death. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Students will be taught the "drill skill and kill" method to be used on grammar concepts within an argumentative paper.

In the Drive-In Movies, young Gary Soto wants his mother to take him and his siblings to the drive-in movies, a special treat. His plan is to be very good and to do lots of chores one Saturday morning and afternoon in order to impress his mother. Unfortunately, he works so hard at weeding, mowing, and waxing the car that he falls asleep during the movie. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments; writing samples included.

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. 

Rachel wakes up on her eleventh birthday feeling as if she’s still ten—and nine, and eight, and all the ages that came before and the day just gets worse from there. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments; writing samples included.

In this lesson, stduents will review and revise their literary argument essays.

In this lesson, students will address common mistakes and review and revise their argumentative literary essays.

In this lesson, students finish their end of unit assessment by incorporating revisions from the previous lessons to create a final literary analysis.

In this lesson, studuents will write their best version of their draft, including a quote that captures the spirit of their rule to live by.

This is an excerpt from "Tomb Robbers" a story based on Ch’in Shih Huang Ti, the first emperor of China. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students use a newspaper employment advertisement and work together to rewrite the ad using complete sentences. Student then rewrite the advertisement.