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.

Ask an important question this month: What does an activist do? This engaging lesson can be used leading up to Martin Luther King Jr. Day (and year-round). It supports students in understanding what it means to be an activist and how Martin Luther King Jr. used collaborative action to change the world and speak out against oppression. Perfect for first graders and second graders, this activity explores word meaning and other reading and writing skills.

Do you have students who are constantly asking what, who, where, why, how, and when? It's your turn to ask now! Have them read various stories and ask them to answer these questions in this lesson.

Second graders love field trips and sharing their opinions! This fun lesson combines both, as students must convince their teacher to take them on a field trip by practicing their opinion writing and using paragraph structure.

Second grade students will step into the author’s shoes as they hunt for evidence to determine what a nonfiction author’s purpose might be.

Strong narratives have clear sequences of events. Through this lesson, students plan out what will happen in their story before they start writing their own engaging narratives.

Thinking about who, what, when, where, and why isn’t just for detectives! Students will practice gleaning important information from texts using these questions and a few other tools.

This lesson incorporates different learning styles to help students get a firm grasp of what a noun is and its function. It even highlights the important tie between grammar and writing.

Imagine what that interjection might be! As students learn about the purpose and use of interjections, they will use their imaginations to match interjections with a variety of emotions.

Use this lesson to help your ELs learn about words and what they mean. This lesson can stand alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the Vocabulary Flash Cards lesson.

Use this lesson to teach your students how to express opinions about nonfiction topics. This lesson can stand alone or be used as a pre-lesson for the What Does the Author Think? lesson.

This lesson plan teaches kids about W.E.B. Du Bois through video and a short informational text. Students will compare/contrast their findings and create a poster in small groups showing what they learned.

What is the intention of an indentation within a paragraph? Within this lesson, students will explore the reasons why we indent. They’ll categorize and classify content to construct paragraphs that include indentations.

Help your students absorb the details of a text and make inferences about what they read with the strategy of close reading. By reading closely, students will become better able to understand complex themes and nuances in a text.

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!

In this lesson, the class will review what it means to make an inference. After you model how to make an inference in a painting using your schema, your students will work in groups to analyze additional paintings to make more inferences.

We write sentences to tell thoughts, but what happens when we add some parameters? In this lesson, students dissect the words they find in sentences then follow directions to create their own wacky sentences.

Use this lesson to gauge your students’ basic comprehension of fiction text. If they can answer who, what, when, where, why, and how questions, you know they have a handle on it and it’s time to get into more critical thinking!

What do red envelopes, pomelos, and water narcissus flowers have in common? They all bring good fortune during the Chinese New Year! In this lesson, students will write about someone to whom they would like to grant good fortune.

Gabi Garcia's "Listening With My Heart" provides students with an opportunity to reflect on ways to extend themselves compassion all year long. This engaging lesson supports students in understanding what kindness is, as well as how to be kind to themselves and others in their daily lives.

Being able to express and support opinions is greatly beneficial for young learners. This lesson plan includes fun exercises to help students learn about opinions and write supporting statements for their own opinions.

Students will use their understanding of plot, theme, and comparing and contrasting in this lesson that teaches about an award-winning African American author, Jacqueline Woodson. Students will read some of her fiction books and compare and contrast the stories. They'll also discuss what they think makes Jacqueline Woodson an award-winning author.

What’s the deal with all of those text features? Use this handy lesson plan to help your second graders answer that very question.

Ahoy there! Ready to sail with your students on a treasure map summary? What's that matey? Your students need practice with summaries? Then take a journey and summarize to find the hidden treasure.

What's the difference between regular and irregular plural nouns? Your students will enjoy finding out via some fun writing exercises in this comprehensive lesson.

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.

Your students’ understanding will reach its peak when they ask detail-seeking questions from observations made about plateaus, mesas, canyons, and buttes. Students will use illustrations and text to assist in their questions and answers.

This lesson will provide your ELs with support as they learn about nouns and practice retelling a story with a 5 W's graphic organizer. This lesson can be used as a stand alone activity or a support lesson.

Increase student comprehension by teaching your students strategies to figure out the meaning of unknown words. This lesson can be used as a stand alone activity or a support lesson for the Be a Nonfiction Detective lesson.

Give your students a chance to hone their reading comprehension skills by creating nonfiction text summaries in this introductory lesson.