Cluster 2: Craft and StructureArchived

In this lesson plan, students will study the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. They will learn about its purpose and examine what the Founders hoped to establish and preserve for their own generation as well as future generations of Americans. Students will apply their knowledge of vocabulary skills to determine the connotative and denotative meanings of selected words used in the Preamble. Students will also practice their paraphrasing skills by paraphrasing the Preamble. 

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will work with two informational texts in the form of brochures, texts about Burmese pythons and lionfish. With the lionfish brochure, students will identify the text features used, determine the central ideas and key supporting details, and work with selected vocabulary. Students will then be provided with informational text on a different animal and they will put their skills to use to create a brochure of their own. Various graphic organizers and teacher resources have been included as attachments with the lesson plan, including a rubric for the students' brochure. Additional resources have also been provided in the Further Recommendations section to help teachers gather resources for students to use to create their own brochure.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will read a series of three news articles about Sudanese efforts to disband child soldier units. Working in small groups, then partners, and finally independently, students will work to determine the meaning of selected vocabulary from each article, respond to text-dependent questions, and complete a graphic organizer answering the lesson's guiding questions and citing evidence from the text in support of their analysis. Students will then write an extended paragraph in response to one guiding question of their choosing. This is the first lesson of a three part unit that will build towards having the students research and write a paper on child soldiers.

Unit overview: This unit will guide students though the process of reading multiple texts to develop knowledge about the topic of child soldiers and will culminate in a final research project. The first lesson focuses on news articles while the second lesson concentrates on one former child soldier's story as portrayed through interviews and his music. As a whole, the unit integrates close reading of multiple sources with speaking and listening activities and provides students with opportunities to write routinely from sources throughout the unit. The unit provides ample occasions for students to read, evaluate, and analyze complex texts as well as routine writing opportunities that encourage reflection.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will conduct a close read of an informational text about the invasion of lionfish in the Gulf of Mexico. Students will work to determine the meaning of selected vocabulary, determine the author's central idea, and analyze how the use of text features and the cause/effect text structure support and develop the author's central idea. Text-dependent questions and a key, an annotation handout, text feature cards for review, and a friendly letter template and writing rubric for the summative assessment have been included with the lesson.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will conduct a close read of the article, "Why Teenagers Really do Need an Extra Hour in Bed" by Russell Foster (published on April 22, 2013 in Issue 2913 of NewScientist). For the first reading, students will focus on academic vocabulary. In the second reading, students will answer text-dependent questions to guide their comprehension of the article. In the third close reading, students will choose important facts in the article and cross-reference them with other articles to determine the validity and reliability of the evidence. Graphic organizers and worksheets, along with suggested keys and a writing rubric, have been provided. For the summative assessment, students will write a persuasive letter in which they make a claim regarding sleep and support it with textual evidence.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will create a research question based on The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Students will develop a research question about how a characteristic or event in the life of young Ben Franklin influenced an accomplishment of an older, mature Ben Franklin. Students will research the life of Ben Franklin to answer their questions and present their findings in a short oral presentation.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will conduct three close readings of an excerpt from Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

For the first reading, the students will complete a graphic organizer to define select vocabulary words. In the second reading, students will complete another graphic organizer to analyze the types of figurative language used in the story and how they impact the tone and meaning. They will also complete a T-chart comparing and contrasting the sensory details used to describe a before and after of the author's home. In the final reading, students will answer text-based questions about the excerpt. Answer keys for the graphic organizers and text-based questions are included.

The summative assessment, in the form of a narrative/descriptive essay, will require the students to choose a special place of their own and describe it with specific words and figurative language that convey the appropriate tone.

Type: Lesson Plan

This close reading exemplar uses an excerpt from Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Secrets Behind What You Eat. The goal of this two day exemplar from Student Achievement Partners web resources is to give students the opportunity to use reading and writing habits to unpack Pollan's investigative journalism of industrial farms. By reading and rereading the passage closely combined with classroom discussion about it, students will identify why and how farming practices have changed, as well as identify Pollan's point of view on the subject. When combined with writing about the passage and teacher feedback, students will begin to appreciate investigative journalism, as well as question from where their food is coming.

Type: Lesson Plan

The goal of this three day exemplar from Student Achievement Partner web resources is to give students the opportunity to use reading and writing habits to absorb deep lessons from Charles Hirshberg's recollections of his mother. By reading and rereading the passage closely and focusing their reading through a series of questions and discussions about the text, students will identify how much his mother's struggles and accomplishments meant to both Hirshberg and the wider world. When combined with writing about the passage, and possibly pairing this exemplar study with Richard Feynman's memoir "The Making of a Scientist," students will discover how much they can learn from this mixed genre memoir/biography about what inspires life choices.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students investigate picture books organized in comparison/contrast structures to discover methods of organization and the ways authors use transitions to guide readers. Students can then decide what organizational patterns and transitional words work best to accomplish their individual purposes in writing and apply those to their papers. This lesson is designed to be used during a unit when students are writing a comparison/contrast paper. It will be most helpful prior to drafting, but it could also be useful during revision.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson by Deborah Kozdras, Ph.D. and James L. Welsh, provided by ReadWriteThink.org, a website developed by the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, with support from the Verizon Foundation, students will use the Internet to research unique engineering careers. Students will then create poems incorporating career-specific vocabulary terms and present their findings to the class.

Type: Lesson Plan

As students will have previous exposure to the historical themes and factual information about the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the United States involvement in WWII, and the internment of Japanese in camps throughout the western United States, this lesson exemplar will allow students to participate in critical discussion of two stories that illuminate important, yet divergent, experiences of war and conflict. This lesson exemplar will push students to think critically about the experience of wartime as felt by both soldiers and civilians as they navigated specific trials that were a part of their direct or peripheral involvement in WWII.

Type: Lesson Plan

This activity emphasizes the importance of teaching reading and writing strategies for students to use with informational text.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn how to use context clues—including definitions, synonyms, and antonyms—to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words in this baseball-themed, interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn about four text structures often used in informational texts: sequence, compare and contrast, problem/solution, and cause and effect. In this interactive tutorial, you'll practice identifying these various text structures using a short article about playing the lottery. 

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn to distinguish between figurative and literal language in context. In this interactive tutorial, you'll examine excerpts of speeches from John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama. You'll practice identifying the following types of figurative language: similes, metaphors, personification, and onomatopoeia. You'll also practice determining the intended meaning of these examples of figurative language.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

The first ELL teaching idea on this site (found under "Articles") focuses on the understanding of the word "perseverance" as it relates to Olympic athletes who have had to overcome various challenges to be able to compete. Multiple text types (photo, video, articles) address a variety of learners' modalities. Other teaching ideas focus on health and fitness, what inspires you, and even public interest in sports being motivated by popular books and movies. Each idea can stand on its own or multiple ideas can be combined into a thematic unit.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this ReadWriteThink.org lesson, students will be able to explore the genre of science fiction, while learning more about the science integrated into the plot of the story using nonfiction texts and resources. First, students define the science fiction genre and then read and discuss science fiction texts. Next, they conduct research to find science facts that support or dispute the science included in the plot of the science fiction book they read. Students then revisit their definition of the genre and revise based on their reading. Finally, students complete a project that examines the science fiction genre in relation to real-world science concepts and topics. This lesson plan makes the connections between the worlds in science fiction and students' real world explicit by asking them to explore the underlying science that supports the fictional world and considering its relationship to the real science in today's society.

Type: Teaching Idea