This strategy guide focuses on planning and implementing close reading of complex text in the primary grades which fosters progressively deeper thinking as students become more responsible for their own learning. It offers a step-by-step...

This interactive worksheet provides 10 questions: each includes a reading passage which students read and select the patterns of organization used in each passage. RI.11-12.3 Text development

This is a strategy guide to determine if reading material is complex and therefore, worth a close reading. It offers a list of quantitative, qualitative, reader characteristics/task consideration measures of text complexity.

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Learn how to synthesize and make logical connections between ideas within a text and across two or three texts representing similar or different genres and support with...

This activity focuses on close reading, the careful, sustained reading of a text. One strategy to help you read closely is to ask yourself questions such as What is your overall impression of the passage? What mood does the passage...

A brief explanation of the tasks involved in doing a close reading in preparation for writing. This writer breaks the process into three steps which involve annotating the text, looking for patterns, and asking questions of the text.

As you read through the texts in this lesson, you will practice close reading strategies to help you understand a writer's tone. You'll be examining the writer's choice of diction, details, and irony to identify the writer's attitude.

This strategy guide focuses on writing text-dependent questions which require the student to reread the text to support their answers. It offers a list of what to do to create these questions that progress from establishing general...

Read carefully in order to identify allusion, imagery, metaphor, and symbolism and to evaluate their impact on the meaning of a text. RL.9-10.9 alllusions to other works.

In this lesson, students will learn some ways that writers reveal the complexity of their characters. By closely analyzing one author's characters, they will come to see how their words, actions, and interactions with one another can...

Democracy and power to the people are celebrated as key American values, but sometimes democracy is more complicated than one might think. This informational text investigates some close calls in U.S. elections and what caused their...

[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about three different types of penguins: the emperor, the king, and the little blue. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.

Students will read "Casey at the Bat" and "Mighty Jackie: The Strikeout Queen" in order to compare and contrast the themes of these texts. Detailed lesson and Venn Diagram worksheet included.

Read carefully in order to identify diction, tone, and irony and evaluate their impact on the meaning of a text.

Read carefully in order to identify allusion, imagery, metaphor, and symbolism, and evaluate their impact on the meaning of a text.

Read carefully in order to identify diction, tone, and irony, and evaluate their impact on the meaning of a text.

This lesson will help you comprehend the poet's meaning by giving you practice in finding imagery, metaphors, symbolism, and allusions.

In this lesson, you will discover some ways that writers reveal the complexity of their characters. By closely analyzing one author's characters, you'll come to see how their words, actions, and interactions with one another can shape a...

[Free Registration/Login Required] This PDF is the Program Notes from The New York Philharmonic's production of "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin. It provides information about Gershwin and his writing of the "jazz concerto." It is...

"I Like Plants" is a one page, realistic fiction, reading passage about a person who loves plants and became a botanist; now she teaches her college students about plants and ecology. It is followed by constructed-response questions...

"City Mouse: A Fable" is a one- page fable about a city mouse and a country mouse. The city mouse visits the country mouse where food is limited. The country mouse visits the city where the food is great, but there is constant danger. It...

"A Proud Flight" is a one page, Greek myth about Icarus and Daedelus. The father and son were imprisoned, and in order to escape, Daedelus made wings using bird feathers covered with wax. He warned Icarus not to get too near the sun or...

In this interview, Michel Martin discusses Frances Robles's report on colorism in the Dominican Republic. Colorism is a form of prejudice based on the darkness of a person's skin color. Discrimination based on colorism often occurs...

"A Better Community" is a one page, fictional reading passage that focuses on recycling. It is followed by constructed-response questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes skills such as sequencing,...