Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address provides the text for a series of close reading exercises that model for instructors how carefully crafted guiding questions can help readers think critically about what they read, thus developing...

Look back at the third chapter of The Cay with your class. Pupils will conduct a close reading, taking a second look at a chunk of text and responding to a series of text-dependent questions. Wrap up with an analytical writing prompt...

Designed for teachers, this 12-page packet uses passages from Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace" to model how to design activities that encourage close reading of complex text.

The tone is easy to hear but more challenging to detect in written texts. Users of this interactive learn how to closely observe the diction and words writers use to convey their feelings about their subject. They examine passages that...

Conduct a close reading of chapter 9 of The Cay. Read the chapter again and ask pupils to respond to a list of included text-dependent questions. Finish the class with the provided writing assignment, which asks learners to use textual...

What experiences lead people to change and how do they do it? After reading about Cole's encounter with Touching Spirit Bear, readers complete the second out of a series of five activities to predict future events in the text. The...

Make a study of the First Amendment and its relationship to freedom. Pupils rewrite the amendment and discuss the central idea before focusing on a specific phrase. After discussing, class members write a journal entry about the included...

Scholars learn about the Hero's Journey as they read Ray Bradbury's "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." They analyze the story's structure and narrative techniques. Finally, they write summaries of the text's central idea and use their...

An interactive resource teaches readers how to annotate all kinds of texts. After reading an introduction that stresses the benefits of text annotations, users examine several models and then demonstrate what they have learned by...

All teachers are teachers of reading! The 13-part interactive series ends with a lesson that teaches learners (and their instructors) how to approach reading their textbooks. After learning about several strategies, users test their...

A passage from Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises offers class members an opportunity to demonstrate their reading comprehension skills.

Prepare to teach Jan Brett stories by taking a look at this teacher resource, which includes text-based questions, writing assignments, discussion ideas, and vocabulary practice for 18 different stories.

Invite your learners to take a close look at Abraham Lincoln's presidency through analysis worksheets of several images and primary documents, presented on an educational poster entirely dedicated to this great United States...

Your class members will get up close and personal with the Big Apple in this fantastic lesson, which introduces learners to not only the concept of a city, but also provides a thorough overview of New York City itself and its...

Encourage close reading for young learners with a lesson based on Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting. The first part of the resource guides readers through a Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA), prompting them to make...

Can you guess what is going to happen in a story just by looking at the cover? Readers engage in a directed-reading activity in which...

A great actor has the ability to make or break a play. A series of lesson plans related to William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar looks closely at the choices actors make during a production of the play to help provide insight into the...

A reading adventure pack, featuring a fiction and nonfiction book focuses on the weather. Scholars read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett and Seymour Simon and then complete three creative activities. Participants craft...

A Reading Adventure Pack takes a close look at birds. After reading a fiction and nonfiction book, scholars craft a thaumatrope, begin a birding journal using their sense of sight and hearing, and build a model bird using supplies from...

An interactive lesson introduces readers to allusions, the literary device writers use to add depth to their work. Users record notes on the provided graphic organizer as they identify the allusions in poems by Walt Whitman, Langston...

To pique interest in The Last Lecture, readers are given a list of key terms and ask to craft a story inspired by the terms.

Readers read more closely when they think critically about a text. Discuss the words and concepts from Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea with a class activity that asks readers to not only record...

While reading Arthur Miller's The Crucible, start or end each day with a journal activity. The project includes a list of prompts for each act of the play. Pupils choose a prompt every time they write and connect their own experiences to...

After a close reading of Sylvia Plath's "Mirror" and Flora de Falbe's "Five Things About the Lake," young poets craft their own personification list poem about a very special place.