Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...

Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...

Scratching your head when it comes to engaging writing prompts? Check out a list of prompts designed for middle school classes, which includes topics for persuasive writing, expository writing, how-to essays, personal narratives, and...

Although not a complete lesson plan, this set of emotionally powerful texts could be used in a variety of lessons. From The New York Times' Learning Network site, the resource includes a poem, an excerpt from a New York Times article and...

Meant for use with Maya Angelou's first autobiographical volume I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the materials here are designed for a homeschool setting, but they'd suit any classroom or text. Graphic organizers, chapter summary...

Who was Vincent van Gogh? Most of the questions can be answered in two or three sentences; however, there is at least one essay prompt and one personal response question that require longer answers. Questions call for a good mix of...

A great resource for informational texts as well as writing topics, the New York Times website provides writing prompts about various news articles through The Learning Network. This particular worksheet provides a very short...

Determining which statements represent fact or the author's opinion in an integral part of reading informational text. Encourage seventh graders to read a passage about Barack Obama and the city of Chicago, as well as a passage focused...

Introduce your class to the personal essay with this worksheet. Learners identify the subject of an essay and then record examples from the essay that represent the author's thoughts and feelings regarding the subject. While this...

Fifth graders compare and contrast an informational article with a fictional story. They read the story "The Contest" as a class, and discuss the different types of literature genres. Next, they complete a vocabulary worksheet and a...

Sixth graders recognize strategies for selecting nonfiction texts. In this book selection lesson, 6th graders practice procedures for knowing if the book is just right for them. Students select from a variety of texts and share their...

Are you teaching a high school language arts class and stumped for writing topics? Five pages of writing prompts for all kinds of writing should help you out. Many of these prompts refer to texts that are not included in this resource,...

Lights, camera, action. Scholars use page 33 of The Most Beautiful Roof in the World to create a readers theater. They work in triads and use sticky notes to mark and create their own speaking parts from sections of the text. They...

Reinforce comprehension of informational text. This is a one-on-one lesson intended to build an internal dialogue the reader can use to boost overall comprehension. They work independently with a tutor or teacher to read a nonfiction...

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...

Explore text structure with a focus on the glossary feature in informational texts. Learners read a brief introduction before examining a glossary from a text about plants. They reference it while completing four comprehension questions....

Guide your class through a text with resources for before and after reading. Learners ask questions, discuss characters and plot points, point out elements of the reading that stood out, and compose brief summaries.

Three different reading comprehension worksheets are all related to understanding informational or historic stories. Learners read the stories (non included) then answer ten short answer, ten multiple choice, and ten five 'w'...

How close are your eighth graders to mastering the ELA Common Core standards? Keep an eye on progress with these charts, which include every eighth grade identifier and full standard text. As you move through the year and teach,...

Track your class's progress on all of the ELA Common Core standards with these handy charts. Along the left side, each seventh grade identifier is listed along with the full text of the standard. As you teach, reteach, assess,...

Children learn to read and comprehend non-fiction text and explore how to relate non-fiction texts to things they already know. They then examine how to stop and think about what they are reading repeatedly to make sure they understand...

Fourth graders differentiate between fiction and nonfiction using the books "Sarah Plain and Tall" and "A Day in the Prairie." They develop a list of information that they learn from the text, and create an information web. Students...

Students investigate the purposes of state and local government. They categorize newspaper articles into state and local issues. Pupils summarize nonfiction text. Students given an oral presentation on a news report to the class.