Cluster 1: Key Ideas and DetailsArchived

African-Americans in Tallahassee boycotted the bus system for nearly seven months after the arrest of two Florida A&M University (FAMU) students for sitting beside a white woman. During the boycott, African-Americans in Tallahassee used car pools to get to and from work and for other necessary transportation. Twenty-one members of the Inter Civic Council were convicted on charges of operating an illegal transportation system for arranging the car pool without a franchise. In this lesson students analyze primary source images to write journal responses focused on what they learned about the Tallahassee Bus Boycott.

Type: Lesson Plan

Henry Flagler was the founder of what became the Florida East Coast Railway. During the 1880s and 1890s, Henry Flagler expanded train lines through Jacksonville and down the East coast to Miami.

Henry Flagler began the Oversea Railway in 1906 to connect Miami to Key West. This ambitious and innovative project required money, earth-moving, man-hours, and miles of bridges. In this lesson students analyze a letter from Henry Flagler to learn about about Flagler and his contributions to Florida.

Type: Lesson Plan

During World War II, shortages of a variety of civilian goods became commonplace. To ensure fair distribution, and that vital materials would be conserved for military use, the Federal government implemented a rationing policy on a wide variety of products. Gasoline, rubber, bicycles, shoes, sugar, fruits and vegetables, fats and oils, cheese, coffee, butter, meats, fish, certain canned goods, and even dried peas and beans were among the many products rationed for all or part of the war.

In this lesson students will use primary sources to learn how the rationing of goods effected the lives of adults and children during World War II.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will use photographs that depict different aspects of the Daytona Normal and Industrial School. Students will use prior knowledge to describe what they believe a day at the Daytona Normal and Industrial School would look like. Students write using evidence from the photographs.

Type: Lesson Plan

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

With the seemingly limitless supply of salt available to us today, it is hard to imagine the hardship imposed by its lack. The Confederate army's meat supply was preserved with salt. With the Union blockade in place, the Confederate states turned to local sources for this important mineral. Salt production became a crucial endeavor for citizens of Florida. In this lesson students will compare Confederate and Union perspectives of the salt works using an illustration, a letter and an excerpt from a memoir.

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 is the second lesson of a two-part unit on theme. Students will identify a universal theme in the biographical texts A Picture Book of Anne Frank by David Adler and Sojourner Truth by Gwenyth Swain. Students will chart significant events in each text and work to understand how these events create a universal theme in a person's life. The teacher modeling phase uses the text "Honoring King" about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the text is provided with the lesson. The first lesson in this unit has been attached as a related resource.

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 lesson, students will learn about the history of the women's suffrage movement and what it took for women in America to get the right to vote. Throughout the lesson, the teacher and students will look at primary sources such as pictures and original documents, as well as videos about the movement and a PowerPoint to help build students' background knowledge. Then students and the teacher will work through a Reader's Theatre script called "Failure is Impossible" that describes the evolution of the Women's Suffrage Movement. Text-dependent questions for the script have been included. At the end of the lesson, students will work in groups to complete a timeline (an answer key is included) and then individually write an opinion piece on this topic. A rubric is provided to help teachers assess students' writing.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will take notes about the Everglades using a variety of resources. Students will identify appropriate text features that can be used to convey information. As a final product, students will practice their expository writing by creating an informational brochure about the Everglades that uses the description text structure and multiple text features.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn how to analyze primary documents and discover facets of Native American life by analyzing images of a variety of Native American villages. After careful analysis, students will write an expository paragraph based on a text-dependent question.

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 briefly discuss background knowledge of the Berlin Airlift following World War II and then read Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot by Patricia A. Pierce. Students will then create a narrative story in which they describe an act of kindness. Students will utilize an editing checklist for giving and receiving peer feedback.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will read an informational text, will identify the central idea and relevant details, and record their findings on a graphic organizer. They will use the informational text and their graphic organizer to create a summary based on the text. The students will also answer questions based on the text. As a summative assessment for the lesson, the students will repeat this activity using a different informational text and will conduct the work alone, rather than in a group.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students explore the impact plants, animals, and humans are having on the environment - especially native plants and animals. This lesson has some interesting hands-on investigations to help students visualize the impact pollution is having on habitats. For the final project, students use their research to create a class book informing others about plants and animals that are endangered. Students also share ways people can help!

This lesson includes reading and writing activities that could be integrated into daily reading and language arts time blocks.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will conduct a guided inquiry lab involving the chemical change that creates rust. This lab is meant to be set up in one day and then observed over the course of 3 weeks.

Type: Lesson Plan

Using a main idea and detail organizer students will identify the different details about sound that relate to the main idea. Students will also be able to understand the concept of using an informational text to help them comprehend information about a science topic.

Type: Lesson Plan

Using the main idea and details graphic organizer, students will be able to distinguish between information given on the properties of matter – mass, shape, and volume. Students will also demonstrate their understanding of science concepts learned from reading an informational text passage on the properties of matter.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson demonstrates how students can apply the process of identifying main idea and supporting details to show how the force of magnetism works and how it can be useful in everyday life. The lesson provides an opportunity for students to interact with informational text and participate in a jigsaw learning activity.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson demonstrates how students can determine the cause and effect relationship in the digestion process. Students will be able to determine where chemical and physical changes occur in the digestion process and support their findings from an informational text. This lesson provides students with an opportunity to apply their knowledge of physical and chemical changes in matter to the process of digestion.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this integrated ELA lesson, students will determine the cause and effect relationship for types of metals that experience rusting and tarnishing. The students can also compare and contrast the chemical changes of rusting and tarnishing, which will help them further understand how matter can change. This integrated lesson will help students apply comprehension skills to better understand informational text.

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 resource, students will identify facts that are used to support an opinion in an editorial. Students will review three different editorials throughout the teacher modeling, guided practice, and independent practice. The practice passages are provided with the resource. With each passage, students will identify the subject of the editorial, the author's opinion, and facts that support the author's opinion.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this resource, students will identify and describe evidence in a text showing that it is a biography. In guided and independent practice activities students will use A Picture Book of Anne Frank by David A. Adler.

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

Students will learn about renewable and nonrenewable resources and share their ideas by writing an expository paragraph.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn the difference between explicit and implicit information, make an inference based on the information you read, and refer to details from the text to explain your thinking. This interactive tutorial will also help you learn about the largest turtle on earth, the Leatherback sea turle.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn how to identify explicit evidence and understand implicit meaning in a text

Sometimes the main idea likes to hide out in the texts that you read. Lenny Lizard will give you some pointers on how to uncover the main idea and use key details to support your answers.

By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to find the directly and indirectly stated main idea of a text. You will also learn how to identify and explain how key details support the main idea.

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 use multiple reading strategies to answer questions and comprehend text.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will summarize text using a graphic organizer.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will answer questions about the author's purpose.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify significant and minor details in text.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will summarize text (narrative and expository) using a graphic organizer.

Type: Student Center Activity

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

In this lesson, third grade students access prior knowledge about water pollution before exploring the topic further using read-alouds. They then complete a sequencing graphic organizer using a story of a fish and its journey from the mountains to a polluted waterway. Finally, students' understanding of cause and effect is reinforced using a hands-on experiment, art project, and graphic organizer.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence