Foster reader confidence when encountering complex text and reinforce the skills readers have acquired to build and extend their understanding of text. The plan uses a section of Douglass’ narrative as an exemplar text. Directions for...

Expose your class to Waiting for the Biblioburro, narrative nonfiction that will act as the bridge between ficiton and informational texts to come. Class members do a close reading of the text, looking at excerpts instead of the whole...

Focus on similarities and differences with a jigsaw activity that requires pupils to compare Waiting for the Biblioburro to other texts they have read. To prepare, class members first respond to text-dependent questions, moving on to...

What makes a poem difficult? Explore that topic and more with your class as you work through the lesson detailed here. Using materials from Poetry Out Loud, a national recitation contest, individuals or small groups examine poems and...

Review one of the most memorable cases in the history of the United States. After reading To Kill A Mockingbird, young scholars read and select court transcripts and other primary source material from the Scottsboro Boys Trial of 1933....

Eleventh graders read and study Hamlet. Then they are introduced to close reading as a means of understanding what is being read--not only understanding the printed word, but also the nuances and connotations of language as it is used by...

Students analyze close readings of poems, looking up words in the dictionary, and discussing the major parts of dictionary definitions, including word origin and parts of speech. They examine sonnets, then compare/contrast their findings.

In this reading skills activity, students read the questions and select the correct answer to test their reading skills in an online format.

In this context clues worksheet, students read the sentences and use context clues to determine which word best completes the sentence. Students complete 8 sentences.

In this correcting mistakes worksheet, students learn to read closely and correct errors in the text. Students find the spelling mistakes in the sentences and correct the word by writing it on the line. Students must then read the...