Cluster 2: Craft and StructureArchived

In this lesson, students will examine documents and decide which are primary sources and which are secondary sources. This lesson is intended to give students an introduction to the concept of primary versus secondary sources and to prepare them for future study using more complex documents.

The documents referenced in this lesson plan are from the Daniel M. Williams Papers, held by the State Archives of Florida. Williams collected various documents and photographs in order to write a biography of Mary McLeod Bethune.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will conduct a close reading of an informational article about pythons in the Everglades. Students will use a variety of strategies to determine the meaning of selected academic words in context, and they will sort selected tier 3 words into categories and examine the relationships between words in a category. Students will also answer text-dependent questions about the article and identify and describe the cause/effect structure used throughout the article. Students will complete an informational paragraph about the events that are occurring in the Everglades using text evidence to support their ideas. Graphic organizers, answer keys, and a writing rubric have been provided with the lesson.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will read an informational article about the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest. Students will identify and describe the cause/effect structure used throughout the article. Students will write an expository paragraph about events occurring in the Amazon Rainforest.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will read an informational picture book about a community in Africa that plants mangrove trees to help the community. Students will use a variety of strategies to determine the meaning of selected academic words in context. Students will also identify and describe the central idea and relevant details used throughout the book in order to write a summary paragraph.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson will provide an in depth look at informational text that is heavy with graphic features and links science to reading. By the completion of the lesson, the students will have studied the text features and text structure of an informational text. They will use information provided to explain an author’s claim.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this MEA students will have to find the right rental for a client as they use their knowledge of numbers and some reasoning. Students will read and write multi-digit whole numbers using base-ten numerals, number names, and expanded form.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will learn how humans are impacting the environment by reading various informational texts on the topic of saving the rain forests. Students will determine the meanings of unknown content-specific words and identify the main idea and supporting details within the text. They will write a summary of the text and respond to a prompt by writing an opinion essay.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will explore the structure of plants in ways never before. Through observations about plant parts related to everyday food, students will gain a further understanding of humans and plants being interdependent. This lesson integrates Science, Reading, Writing and even some Math practices if choosing to complete the extension activities.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson presents students with three types of text structures (description, sequence, and problem/solution). Students are able to identify clue words that categorize each text structure and create their own graphic organizers and pieces of writing for each text structure.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson has students defining a selection of words from the Pledge of Allegiance. After defining these words, students will identify synonyms for the selected words and rewrite the pledge in their own words. Students will then orally present their rewritten pledge to the class.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is an integrated science and reading lesson. This lesson is intended as a beginning of year lesson to give students the foundation in some of the practice of science and writing standards. Students will conduct an investigation on inherited traits and use evidence from a research article and their investigation to support their findings.

Type: Lesson Plan

Using cause and effect organizer students will identify the different types of energy-light, sound, heat, electrical, and motion, recognize the cause of these energies and the effects that they have. Students will also understand the concept of using an informational text to help them understand information about a science topic.

Type: Lesson Plan

Through demonstrations and lab/investigate rotations, students will explore physical and chemical changes.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson demonstrates how students can apply the process of identifying main idea and supporting details to show the different ways burning can chemically change matter. The students can identify these changes and discuss the details that support these changes, which will help them further understand how burning matter is considered a chemical change.

Type: Lesson Plan

The goal of this two to three day exemplar is to give students the opportunity to use the reading and writing habits they've been practicing on a regular basis to absorb deep lessons from Richard Feynman's recollections of interactions with his father. By reading and rereading the passage closely, and focusing their reading through a series of questions and discussion about the text, students will identify how and why Feynman started to look at the world through the eyes of a scientist. When combined with writing about the passage, students will discover how much they can learn from a memoir.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will become familiar with common text structures in order to improve their comprehension of non-fiction material.

Type: Lesson Plan

This Engineering Design Challenge is intended to help fourth grade students apply the concepts of the flow of heat from a hot object to a cold object and that heat flow may cause objects to change temperature. It is not intended as an initial introduction to this benchmark.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will use a compare and contrast chart (graphic organizer) to compare and contrast the different properties of matter – color, hardness, texture, odor, and taste. Students will also demonstrate the science concepts learned from reading informational text passages on the properties of matter.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn about recycling renewable and nonrenewable resources while completing a model eliciting activity in which they help Sunshine School District to decide which material to start their recycling program with.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Help Noah learn how to identify examples of cause and effect in informational text in this ocean-themed, interactive tutorial. You will also learn how to match events and ideas in informational text that have a cause and effect relationship.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Students can practice answering reading comprehension questions with a text about online learning. With an account, students can save their work and send it to their teacher when complete.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify text structures and complete corresponding graphic organizers. Multiple graphic organizers are provided, and a reference sheet is also provided that includes an explanation, signal words, and graphic organizer templates for each text structure.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will sort sentences based on their text structures. As an extension activity, students can write about a topic using each text structure.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify the relationship between cause and effect. NOTE: This is an introductory activity for cause and effect. Students will need to extend their learning using text containing a cause/effect text structure to fully meet the expectations of the aligned standards.

Type: Student Center Activity

This teaching idea introduces students to the idea that science writing is organized in identifiable patterns called text structures. Understanding and using these different text structures helps refine students' abilities to both read and write in science. A wide variety of resources and extension activities are included.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, the students will discuss and determine wildlife rescue scenarios based on cards with situations.

Type: Teaching Idea

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This National Geographic Kids article explains how the invasion of non-native plants is threatening native food webs.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes the complete and incomplete metamorphosis stages.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes chemical, biological and mechanical weathering and includes causes and examples for each.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes how energy passes through food chains. Examples of each link in the chain and a description of its role in the food chain are given.

Type: Text Resource

In this unit, students will learn about the Civil Rights Movement through the perspective of Ruby Bridges, a young girl caught in the struggle for equality during this time. Vocabulary strategies, slideshows, graphic organizers, and text-based questions are all included to help students compare/contrast Ruby's world with their own.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

In this lesson tied to academic standards for English/Language Arts, students receive support as they read a complex informational text about honeybees. The teacher facilitates a close reading and writing a response-to-text.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

This lesson focuses on identifying and analyzing the compare and contrast text structure within expository texts. First, students are introduced to the terms compare and contrast and asked to find similarities and differences between two common items. Next, students work in small groups to identify texts that are comparing and contrasting information. Students are then introduced to the Venn diagram as a tool that demonstrates similarities and differences and aids in learning new material.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence