Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a 17th century writer and philosopher who today is considered one of the first documented feminists and advocates for women’s education. In this lesson, students will read two nonfiction texts about Sor Juana and discuss her life and accomplishments before writing an opinion piece about her.

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.

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.

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.

Understanding the big idea of a nonfiction text and being able to write a succinct summary are key fourth grade skills. This lesson focuses on summarizing a nonfiction passage in three to four sentences.

Help your students' story telling abilities grow with this lesson that helps them recount what happened in a story and has them point out key details.

The students are coming! The students are coming! Debunk common myths and teach your students about Paul Revere's ride with this lesson plan that lets students finish their own graphic novels.

Nourish your child's inner writer with this lesson on three different forms of literature: poetry, prose, and drama. After going through some examples of each, students will demonstrate their knowledge by filling out bubble maps.

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.

This lesson will have your students learn to compare and contrast using both a classic fairy tale and a fractured versions of a fairy tale.

Are the stories the same or different? You decide! Use this lesson with your students to practice comparing the story elements in two fictional stories written by the same author.

This lesson will help your students summarize short stories and describe how characters respond to challenges using a story map. Use this lesson as a stand-alone activity or a support lesson for the Story Mapping Group Work lesson plan.

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.

Use this lesson to teach your students to describe the similarities between stories with words that signal comparison. This lesson can stand-alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the The Same or Different? You Decide! lesson.

Use this lesson to teach your students to identify story elements and compare them to another text's story elements. This lesson can stand alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the Comparing Texts by the Same Author lesson.

By fourth grade, most students are familiar with story elements such as setting, characters, and plot. In this lesson, students will compare and contrast the elements in two stories with similar themes.

In this lesson, your students will practice their reading comprehension and vocabulary with the Pledge of Allegiance. They will reflect on the meaning of the pledge.

Make history come alive with this interactive lesson! Students will have a blast presenting a "living timeline" to help their classmates understand the events of the Revolutionary War.

This lesson provides teachers with an opportunity to teach students about reading stamina and assess student comprehension during independent reading.

Take your students to a magical place by having them read stories such as "The Ugly Duckling" and "Rumpelstiltskin." They can read these magical stories and figure out the main idea and details in them!

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.

Make it move! In this lesson, students will learn about energy and make connections between force and energy. Through a hands-on approach, students will work in teams to construct and report on their experiments.

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, Significance of "Let Freedom Ring" in MLK, Jr.'s Speech, students will be able to understand the allusion Martin Luther King, Jr. makes to the song "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Have students discuss allusions in this speech.

Characters, settings, and events, oh my! In this lesson, students will dig deeper into each of these components and learn to provide specific details from their texts.

Take your fourth and fifth graders on a deep dive into the civil rights movement with this lesson on Amelia Boynton Robinson. A key activist in the movement, Amelia played a critical role in organizing the Selma to Montgomery march. Your students will read, annotate, and analyze her biography through multiple reads, before discussing the text with their classmates.

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.

What makes a story, a story? In this lesson, students examine the elements of stories. They learn to use pre-planning strategies to set their own stories up for success... before they even start writing!

ELs will gain valuable practice learning about text features as they practice close reading and communication skills during a nonfiction picture walk. Use on its own or as a support for the Classifying Nonfiction Text Features lesson plan.

In this lesson, students will use conjunctions to compare and contrast scary stories. It can be taught independently or used as a pre-lesson to Using Story Elements to Compare and Contrast Fiction Texts.