Students and the teacher produce a class book through a group-writing activity, focusing on a basic before-during-after sequence of events.
Thorough explanation of the how and why of text-dependent questions for close, analytic reading. Includes examples.
The Common Core State Standards for reading strongly focus on students gathering evidence, knowledge, and insight from what they read. Indeed, eighty to ninety percent of the Reading Standards in each grade require text dependent analysis; accordingly, aligned curriculum materials should have a similar percentage of text dependent questions.
As the name suggests, a text dependent question specifically asks a question that can only be answered by referring explicitly back to the text being read. It does not rely on any particular background information extraneous to the text nor depend on students having other experiences or knowledge; instead it privileges the text itself and what students can extract from what is before them.
In this lesson Students use the Cornell notes tool (developed by Walter Pauk from Cornell University) to do close reading of informational text. Students will be able to read closely and analyze the key details of what they read. Students will be able to summarize informational text.
This article discusses how creating Readers Theater scripts from informational text can improve fluency and build comprehension.
Recently, a doctored video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi got millions of views on social media. Deepfakes are becoming easier to make and spread, and Above the Noise is here to help people understand this new phenomenon and what to do about it.
Students explore the genre of posters, review informational writing and visual design, and then design poster presentations to share in class or at a school-wide fair.
Mrs. Crowell takes her 2nd and 3rd graders on a nature walk where they use a dichotomous key to identify different species they encounter. This lesson shows a simple way to take students out on a walk and teach them how to identify species, no matter where they are.
Students learn about memory by doing a memory-writing exercise, studying the brain to understand how it affects memory, reading Li-Young Lee's poem "Mnemonic," and creating projects to demonstrate their understanding.
Students will learn the potential costs and benefits of social media, digital consumption, and our relationship with technology as a society in the three-week lesson. This inquiry based unit of study will answer the following questions:
Essential Question: How can we use science fiction’s ability to predict the future to help humanity?
Supportive Questions 1: What predictions of future development has science fiction accurately made in the past? This can include technology, privacy, medicine, social justice, political, environmental, education, and economic.
Supportive Question 2: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are positive for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to make these predictions reality?
Supportive Question 3: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are negative for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to stop these negative outcomes?
By closely reading historical documents and attempting to interpret them, students consider how Arthur Miller interpreted the facts of the Salem witch trials and how he successfully dramatized them in his play, "The Crucible." As they explore historical materials, such as the biographies of key players (the accused and the accusers) and transcripts of the Salem Witch trials themselves, students will be guided by aesthetic and dramatic concerns: In what ways do historical events lend themselves (or not) to dramatization? What makes a particular dramatization of history effective and memorable?
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.
In this lesson, before reading, students establish a purpose for reading informational text by turning the title and subtitles into questions.
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.
In this lesson, students will learn about a topic in three different text formats. They will then evaluate each format to determine the pros and cons. Students will also assess the credibility of each text.
Students create text sets on a high interest topic and use the texts to practice three strategies for reading for information.
GIST is a strategy to help students write brief, accurate, and complete summaries of material they read. In this lesson students work together summarizing larger and larger portions of text, but keeping their summaries at 25 words or fewer. Students will be able to summarize portions of informational or literary text. Students will be able to work in small groups to think critically about and discuss text.
This lesson plan asks students to analyze two primary sources, in the form of letters, that address the issues relating to religious freedom for the newly formed United States and its relation to the nature of citizenship and equality in a religiously diverse society. Students will also analyze the 1st. Amendment and develop an argument regarding 1st amendment issues today.
The books selected for this list complement articles in the issue of Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle that introduce the concepts of water availability and of extreme weather conditions. In nonfiction and fiction, the books for Grades K-5 emphasize that freshwater is a limited resource and explain how and why extreme weather events occur.
This activity emphasizes the importance of teaching reading and writing strategies for students to use with informational text.
Students apply knowledge of genres to identify different genres from "reading-alouds of excerpts" from selected books representing different genres.