Ruri, a young Japanese girl, and her family are taken to an internment camp during WWII because the US government was afraid Japanese Americans would ally with Japan. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.
This activity is designed as a project-based learning activity. It allows students to collaborate, requires them to comprehend what they have read and engages them in critical thinking. This activity can be adjusted to fit the needs and grade levels of your students.
Recommended for grades 5-7Novel study unit for middle grades novel CLIMB by Melissa McGovern Taylor; novel available on Amazon
In this short story, Jose learns a valuable lesson about himself when he tries to impress Estella by challenging her to a game of racquetball. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.
A list of character traits with a short project to reinforce actions associated with those traits.
This three week lesson provides instruction in the basic elements of literature by reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Students are also provided the opportunity to understand how their choices can change their attitudes and behavior through a reading of the novel and a series of writing assignments.
Students are introduced to character, plot development, point of view, and tone through the use of comic strips. Students will identify these four attributes in comic strips and present their findings to the class.
A series of worksheets, projects, lessons and activities on characterization for various student levels.
In this lesson, students compare and contrast two versions of the same fairy tale. Students use a Venn diagram to graphically illustrate the similarities and differences in the two stories.
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.
In this lesson, students use the Cornell notes tool to do close reading of informational text.
Includes six text-dependent questions, one constructed response writing prompt, and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.
In this CCSS lesson, students will explore these stories through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.
Movies can be an integral part of the language arts classroom when they are used in ways that encourage and develop students’ critical thinking. In this activity, students explore matching texts—novels and the movies adapted from them—to develop their analytical strategies. They use graphic organizers to draw comparisons between the two texts and hypothesize about the effect of adaptation. They analyze the differences between the two versions by citing specific adaptations in the film version, indicating the effect of each adaptation on the story, and deciding if they felt the change had a positive effect on the overall story. Students then design new DVD covers and a related insert for the movies, reflecting their response to the movie version.
Students are introduced to concepts of social justice, such as diversity, tolerance, equity, and equality, through a literary text, class discussions, and guided research. Students plan a service-learning project, then work in small groups using Photo Story software to produce a multimedia presentation designed to foster community support for the project. Students also use the ReadWriteThink.org Printing Press to create informational fliers about the project. The lesson concludes—and the service-learning project begins—with a showing of the Photo Story productions for parents and other community members.
The media has a huge effect on popular culture. Television programs underscore stereotypes of various groups of people.This lesson provides a platform in which students can critically analyze popular television programs. By looking at the media critically, students develop an awareness of the messages that are portrayed through the media.
Cross Curricular Activity: Integrating ELA and Math Grade: 6Objective 1: Students will analyze and describe the plot of a math-based story and how the characters respond to events from the story. Objective 2: Students will use drawings and numbers to demonstrate how they found answers to a problem.
This curriculum guide covers six works of Laurie Halse Anderson (Chains, Forge, Ashes, Fever 1793, Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution, and Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving), and contains discussion prompts, key vocabulary terms, and ideas for assignments and activities related to each book.
This resource includes an excerpt from the book, "Two Hot Dogs with Everything", six text-dependent questions, one constructed-response writing prompt, and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.
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.