In this lesson, students read informational pieces about whether or not schools should teach cursive writing. They will evaluate the arguments presented and then choose a side of the issue. Finally, they will write their own arguments expressing their points of view.

In this lesson students use a simple SOAPSTone form (College Board resource) to analyze six aspects of informational texts: subject, occasion, audience, purpose, speaker, and tone.

Students read National Geographic's "Teenage Brains" by David Dobbs and various informational texts about the development of the teenage brain to understand the factors that ultimately dictate teens' decision-making and behavior.

Review shared claims developed across three informational texts. Then share your response with the class.

Students read two informational texts to understand the immediate and lasting effects that concussions and high impact sports have on the teenage brain.

This 18 day unit explicitly teaches text structures, summary, text features, reading informational text about Mesopotamia, and writing a book about Mesopotamia. Instruction moves from high scaffolding to moderate scaffolding to independent practice as students become familiar with the various text structures, how to identify them, what graphic organizer will work with each text structure, how to use notes recorded in graphic organizers to write summaries, and how to compile an informational book. Mesopotamia is the content used as an anchor.

Self-scoring interactive lesson for improving skills in scanning informational texts and charts for keywords and specific details.

In this lesson students will create a graphic organizer that uses the titles and subtitles of an informational text before they begin reading.

In this lessons students identify information from text using titles, subtitles, diagrams, charts, graphs, maps, photographs, illustrations, and captions by using a preview checklist.

This lesson, based on the animated story "Welcome Home Balto" from the PBS KIDS series MOLLY OF DENALI, helps children use visual imagery to enhance comprehension while listening to and reading informational texts. After Molly hears the story of Balto, a real sled dog who became a hero to children in Alaska, she decides that he should be memorialized in a statue. In the lesson, students make mental images of Balto's historic journey and compare them to Molly's images. Then they apply the use of imagery within the context of a current unit of study. Media and support materials are provided.

This "jigsaw" activity will give students the opportunity to work in groups to summarize a 1 to 2 page informational text. It "jigsaws" down to 1 class summary and can be done in 2 or 3 days. This plan was designed for a class of 22 students but can be easily modified by varying group size.

With this video and accompanying lesson plan, students will gain an understanding of the Shoshone tribe while learning about the Shoshone Parfleche. [3:07]