This resource, created as part of the CESA #1 EL OER Project, includes a list of character traits with accompanying visuals. Students (especially ELs) can use it to understand and generate new vocabulary to describe the characters they are reading about in their texts. The first two pages list opposing character traits next to each other, while the third page contains additional traits.

In order to fully comprehend reading materials, students need to understand the cause-and-effect relationships that appear in a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts. In this lesson, students learn cause-and-effect relationships through the sharing of a variety of Laura Joffe Numeroff picture books in a Reader's Workshop format. Using online tools or a printed template, students create an original comic strip via the writing prompt, "If you take a (third) grader to."  Students use various kinds of art to illustrate their strip and publish and present their completed piece to peers in a read-aloud format.

This is a fun rap that covers the five main elements of a story: setting, plot, characters, conflict and theme.

In this lesson, The Jolly Postman is used as an authentic example to discuss letter writing as a genre. Students explore the letters to the storybook characters delivered by The Jolly Postman. They then learn how to categorize their own examples of mail. The Jolly Postman uses well-known storybook characters, from fairy tales and nursery rhymes, as recipients of letters. This children's storybook is therefore ideal for using as a review of these genres of literature and as a means of helping children begin to explore rhyme and a variety of writing styles. Several pieces of literature appropriate for use with this lesson are suggested.

In this module, students will read, write, and speak about the topic of voting rights and responsibilities. In the first two units, students will read informational texts that focus on the women’s suffrage movement and the leadership of New Yorker Susan B. Anthony. Specifically, they will read firsthand and secondhand accounts of her arrest and trial for voting in a time when women were outlawed from doing so. Students then read The Hope Chest by Karen Schwabach, a historical fiction novel set in the weeks leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment. They will continue to examine the idea of leaders of change and explore the theme “making a difference” by collecting evidence on how selected characters make a difference for others. After completing the novel, students will analyze this theme in selected passages of the novel and write an essay

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

CESA #1EL OER Project: Keep track of your jots digitally or on paper. This tool is to be used during the Historical Fiction genre so students can keep track of their thinking.

Resource has discussion questions, extension activities and information about the real Ivan. Some of the extension activities include links to other sites with informatin pertaining to The One and Only Ivan.

The Middle Grades Literature Study practiced “reading like a teacher” in order to use high-quality, current and diverse middle grade texts within instructional materials to ensure students are meeting grade-level reading standards, can read and comprehend a variety of complex literary and informational texts, while better understanding themselves and others and experiencing the joy of reading.

The resources provided include ideas for meeting grade-level standards in grades 3-6, completed text complexity analyses, and additional resources and texts to consider. We hope these might serve as a model for literacy leaders and teachers to replicate at the local level.

This lesson uses the book Thunder Rose by Jerdine Nolen to reinforce the common elements, or text structure, of tall tales. As the text is read aloud, students examine the elements of the book that are characteristic of tall tales. Then using what they've learned over the course of the unit and lesson, they write tall tales of their own.

This resource was created as part of the CESA #1 EL OER Project to help EL students preview vocabulary related to the book, Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine. The vocabulary organizer template can be used with other books by changing the vocabulary and picture support.