Analyzing the Text for Summary and Connections
Students will critically think and communicate; they will summarize a text to understand and make connections to other texts, themselves, and the world.
Uncovering Tone in Poetry
Students will interpret the tone of a poem, cite text evidence to justify their response, and research a synonym for the word they chose to expand their understanding of Tier 2 vocabulary.
Syntax Shuffle
Students will analyze one of four ways to incorporate grammar and syntax into their everyday language through the use of technological instruction. Once students have comprehended their grammatical type, they will practice among their peers to master and share the lesson (grammar rule) in a Jigsaw activity.
Reading Between the Lines
In this lesson, students will expand their critical thinking skills by making inferences found in a short film and listening to a literary fictional text on tablets. Working collaboratively in groups, students will create anchor charts to demonstrate their understanding of making inferences and present their detailed anchor charts to their classmates.
Inferring with Dr. Seuss
Students will work collaboratively in groups as they practice their inferring skills using children’s literature books.
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
Civil War Inferring
Students will use Social Studies Weekly newspaper to make inferences about historical events using schema and text evidence.
Sticky Note Summarizing
Students will determine the important parts of a story and recognize and compose an individual summary by using color-coordinated sticky notes and the Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then (SWBST) strategy. Students will practice correctly identifying the parts of the SWBST strategy during a read-aloud. Students will work in groups and read a short story together, identify key components, and compose a written summary. Students will demonstrate their ability to recognize a good summary by writing two components of summarization on an exit ticket.
Put on Your Detective Cap: Making Inferences
Students pretend to be detectives while being presented with various pictorial and textual clues that lead them to make an overall inference about what happened on Tuesday.
Summarizing as a Reading Strategy
Students work collaboratively using reading and comprehension skills to demonstrate their mastery of summarizing a text or piece of literature.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Vertical Alignment
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to the unit and Research Lesson. The highlighted student expectation(s) is the chosen focus for the Research Lesson.
Who Is the Culprit?
Engaging in a crime scene investigation, students will collaboratively examine the evidence, make inferences about their observations, and write a detailed description of the crime. Students will then read an informational text about investigating a crime scene and answer inference questions.
Exploring Identity and Diving Deep into the Complex Meaning of Poetry
This lesson is designed to teach students to make complex inferences, choose specific text evidence that strongly supports the inference, and develop a coherent explanation of how the evidence strongly supports the validity of the idea within the genre of poetry.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Related to the Unit
Click below to learn about the TEKS related to this unit.
Did You Get the "Text" Message?
Students will work independently and collaboratively to recognize the theme within a variety of texts. Students will create theme topics and theme statements from texts read.
Skits and Martha Bake a Cake—Martha Speaks

Help children build vocabulary and understand STEM education concepts. Skits and Martha bake a cake for Helen.
Read a Good Book: Communicating by Drawing | IPTV KIDS Clubhouse

IPTV KIDS Clubhouse kids read and discover more about communication! In this segment, kids go to the library and try to get their friends to guess their favorite book titles without using any words, only drawings and actions.
Getting to the Game (PDF) | Martha Speaks

The PDF of the interactive, informational story "Getting to the Game" designed for in-classroom use.
Using the Present Progressive Tense | No Nonsense Grammar

Present progressives describe an action in progress, or something that started in the past and is still happening. It is formed with the helping "to be" verb in the present tense and the present participle of the verb.
Simple and Compound Sentences | No Nonsense Grammar

A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought. A simple sentence contains a subject and a verb and by itself contains a complete thought. A compound sentence contains two independent clauses joined by a coordinator: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.
Using Proper Punctuation for Titles | No Nonsense Grammar

Small works (short stories, essays, magazine and newspaper articles, etc.) are indicated with the use of quotation marks. Larger works, such as books or movies, are indicated either through italics (in typing) or underlining (handwriting).
How to Recognize a Phrase | No Nonsense Grammar

A phrase is a group of related words that does not include both a subject and a verb. It only has one or the other!
Edison: Boyhood and Teen Years

Find out how young Thomas Edison’s curiosity got him into trouble, and how, during his teen years, he lost his hearing but gained confidence as an aspiring inventor, in this video adapted from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: Edison.