Arts and crafts, Venn diagrams, and literature all come together as students compare and contrast stories. Opportunities for student creativity are endless!

Strengthen your students' understanding of figurative language by helping them interpret visual puns! Students will use a webpage to help them understand puns in their future reading and writing endeavors.

Use this lesson to help your ELs compare and contrast supporting characters from excerpted texts. It can be a stand-alone lesson or support the lesson Understanding Character Traits, Understanding Plot Lesson Part III.

Use this lesson to help your ELs summarize information from a text and use context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. This lesson can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the Day 4 section of the Star Unit lesson.

Use this lesson to reinforce using sentence level context clues to decode challenging words in a nonfiction text. This can be used as a stand alone activity or a support the Using Context Clues to Understand Word Meanings lesson.

Let's learn about natural disasters. After reading through some informational texts, students will use their close reading skills to answer questions about different types of disasters.

This lesson focuses on how punctuation affects reading fluency and comprehension using graphic organizers and sentence stems. Use this lesson as a stand-alone activity or a support for the Punctuation and Prosody lesson plan.

This literature-based lesson teaches students about answering key questions and understanding a character's point of view. It'll have young readers roaring, thumping, and having tons of fun as they imitate story characters.

Use this lesson to help your ELs understand details in a sentence by identifying conditional phrases. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson Comparing Primary and Secondary Sources.

Use this lesson to help your ELs evaluate the purpose of text features and justify their answers. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support for the lesson Comparing Nonfiction Text Features.

In this literary lesson, students use fairy tales to practice identifying character traits. Students are challenged to justify their reasoning using text based support.

Your students will learn academic vocabulary and use a graphic organizer to compare and contrast two short stories. Use this as a stand-alone lesson or as an introduction to the Comparing and Contrasting Short Stories lesson plan.

Use this lesson to help your ELs quickly find information on a specific topic by looking for a noun and its pronouns in a nonfiction text. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support for the lesson Ecosystems Explained.

Describe what's happening in the script! Use this lesson to help your ELs describe events in a drama. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson Summer Drama.

Through this lesson, your students will use academic vocabulary to discuss character traits, author's purpose, and the sequence of events in a story.

Use this lesson to help your ELs learn character traits and find them in a text. It can be a stand-alone lesson or a support lesson to the Identifying Character Traits lesson.

Give students many opportunities to see how visuals can influence a story's meaning. Show off your acting skills and read a great book to help them learn!

Knock, knock! It’s the U.S. Census Bureau! In this lesson plan, students analyze primary sources in the form of census data to do research that helps them answer questions about famous people and the time period during which they lived.

All fictional stories have story elements but they sure can differ between stories. In this lesson, students will compare and contrast the story elements of two fictional stories and document their findings in a graphic organizer.

Use a student-friendly glossary and sentence frames to learn about wild weather! Scaffolds will help your students answer text-dependent questions. This lesson can be paired with the main Informational Text: Close Reading lesson.

This is a great lesson plan to introduce your EL students to the use of illustrations in a story. This can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson What's in a Picture?

Engage students in reading grade-level texts by making and testing predictions. Your students will be excited to read on to find out if their predictions are correct!

Teach your students about picture walks as a strategy to understand the author's purpose in a fictional text. This lesson can be used as a stand-alone lesson or as support for the Examining Author's Purpose in a Fictional Text lesson.

Give your class the "write" tools they need to become excellent authors. In this literary lesson, students use their knowledge of author's purpose to successfully write pieces that persuade, inform, and entertain.

This is a great introductory lesson to teach students about the importance of illustrations when reading. It can be used as a stand alone or support lesson for the Introducing Reader's Workshop lesson plan.

Let's practice reading nonfiction texts! In this lesson, teach your ELs about identifying and describing text features. This lesson can be taught on its own or used as support for the lesson Formatting Text Features.

Use this lesson to help your ELs understand how to use conjunctions when contrasting information from two different characters’ perspectives. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the Whose Point Is It Anyway? lesson.

Let's get reading! In this lesson, students will identify the main idea and details of a nonfiction text. Use this on its own or as support for the lesson Connecting the Coasts: Effects of the Transcontinental Railroad.

In this lesson, students will identify nouns and pronouns as they distinguish between the main idea and supporting details. It may be taught on its own or used as support for the lesson Compare and Contrast Texts on the Same Topic.

This lesson plan can be used as a stand alone or support lesson for Reading Winners to introduce or review concepts of print and parts of a book to your ELs.