Students learn components of think-alouds and type-of-text interactions through teacher modeling. In the process, students develop the ability to use think-alouds to aid in reading comprehension tasks.

Students will learn to mind their ps and qs in this lesson on etiquette and appropriate behavior in the classroom.

In this author study, students listen to and discuss four books by Leo Lionni. They identify similarities and differences in the stories and then compare two stories of their choice.

This document presents the crosswalk from the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts to the Virgin Islands Standards of Achievement (VISA) for English Language Arts. Areas highlighted in red indicate the revisions made to the standards.

Students explore a range of resources on fair use and copyright then design their own audio public service announcements & PSA to be broadcast over the school's public address system.

The list of ten things about Opal's absent mother that her father shares in "Because of Winn-Dixie" serves as inspiration for students to create their own lists describing literary characters.

Students find examples of adjectives in a shared reading. Then students "become" major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using powerful adjectives.

Character Perspective Charting allows students to compare multiple characters and their points of view to better understand a story.

Students explore what Carol Jago calls the place "where life and art intersect" by reading Nikki Giovanni's poem, "Nikki-Rosa," and then writing about childhood memories of their own.

Students investigate the effects of word choice in Robert Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star" to construct a more sophisticated understanding of speaker, subject, and tone.

Students analyze "choose your own adventure" stories and brainstorm to develop setting, characters, and plots for their own adventures stories and related Websites.

In this minilesson, students explore the use of dialogue tags such as "he said" or "she answered" in picture books and novels, discussing their purpose, form, and style.

Students select what they believe to be the most important word in a text that they have read and justify their choice using examples from the text.

Students explore how active and passive voices are appropriate to different audiences. They examine online resources, and then draw conclusions about verb use, which they apply to their own writing.

Students make purposeful choices for their reading materials, thinking about their reasons for reading a book and using strategies to match books to their abilities.

In this first unit of second grade, students read multiple versions of a classic fairy tale, Cinderella. Through reading various versions of the same story, students are not only exposed to a wide variety of cultures, but they are also challenged to think about how the culture, or setting, of the story influences the plot. In first grade fiction, students took a trip around the world, exploring a wide variety of themes and stories from all over, in order to build a foundational understanding that our world is made up of many diverse and unique cultures. This unit builds on the exposure to new cultures students received in first grade and provides an opportunity for students to explore the idea that even though cultures may appear to be different, there are many things embedded within the unique characteristics of different cultures that make them similar. Storytelling, and the role of storytelling, is one of those similarities. It is our hope that this unit, in connection with others in the sequence, helps students build empathy and understanding of the world around them.

The different versions of Cinderella help students understand the components of a fairy tale and the lessons associated with traditional fairy tales. Over the course of the unit, students will be challenged to ask and answer questions about the text and illustrations as a way of deepening their understanding of plot, setting, and characters. In the first section of the unit, students will focus deeply on the setting, characters, and plot of the different versions of Cinderella, learning to compare and contrast the nuances across different versions. In the second section of the unit, students will read Cinderella stories that vary from the traditional plot structure but still include the underlying theme that a person’s actions (good or bad) influence his/her life outcomes. In this section students will dive deeply into three texts to analyze different characters’ traits and how the author uses those traits to help reveal the lesson of the story.

Two blobs of clay go on an enjoyable adventure as they transform themselves into fun shapes and new things throughout their escapade. What will they be by the end of the book? The resource includes a lesson plan/book card, a design challenge, and copy of a design thinking journal that provide guidance on using the book to inspire students' curiosity for design thinking. Maker Challenge: Design a stop-motion video that morphs an item of your choice into another item. Before you begin, sketch out the process you’ll take to transform your item.

A document is included in the resources folder that lists the complete standards-alignment for this book activity.

Students become online authors in this lesson in which they write and post a short story using wiki technology.

Students and the teacher produce a class book through a group-writing activity, focusing on a basic before-during-after sequence of events.

Students hone their teamwork skills and play off each other's writing strengths as they participate in prewriting activities for a story to be written collaboratively by the whole class.