Before students can respond to literature critically, they must have a strong grasp of big ideas and summary writing. Support your ELs in these foundational reading skills by introducing a three-sentence paragraph frame for summary writing.

Keep it simple! Teach your students to write a summary using the Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then frame for analyzing a story.

Capture the tip of the iceberg! Use this lesson plan to teach your students to summarize nonfiction texts by noting the “tip of the iceberg,” also known as the main idea. Students will identify and sequence them.

Get a workout with repeat reading activities! Use this lesson plan with your students to practice reading fluency and build comprehension and summary details using fiction classics.

Support your EL students in understanding and identifying the main idea and supporting details in a nonfiction text. This can support the lesson Tip of the Iceberg: Nonfiction Summary Details.

In this support lesson, your ELs will use key vocabulary and sentence structures to summarize a story. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support for the lesson Comparing and Contrasting Book Series.

Star light, star bright! Teach students all about constellations and earth movement with this engaging science lesson plan. Broken out over several days, this unit encourages students to research and report on a constellation.

Prepare your students to analyze and respond to literature by practicing five types of responses: predictions, questions, clarification, connections, and opinions.

Give your class a deeper understanding of theme with this art and poetry-focused lesson plan about theme. By the end of the lesson, students will understand what theme is and how to determine theme in a piece of writing, such as a poem.

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.

Nonfiction texts offer a great lens into cause and effect relationships. Use this lesson plan to teach your class to compare cause-and-effect relationships across texts that share a topic.