Students use the Informational Text Analysis Tool to deconstruct the essential elements of informational text.

This lesson will introduce ESL students to critical background information about the Holocaust prior to reading The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and will help them synthesize that information into a product for presentation (a Wordle). The lesson begins with a brief review on nonfiction reading strategies. Following this, students will work in pairs to answer questions specific to an interactive Holocaust Hotlinks activity. Their final assignment will be to identify key words about the Holocaust from their Hotlink activity and synthesize these into a Wordle for presentation during the following class session.

 A set of lessons teaching classical appeals strategies (ethos, pathos, logos) and their use. Utilizes exemplar speeches by President Roosevelt ("Day of Infamy," December 8, 1941) and Sir Winston Churchill ("Be Ye Men of Valour" May 13, 1940).Image credit: © National Archives

Students use the Cornell notes tool (developed by Walter Pauk from Cornell University) to do close reading of informational text.

This lesson plan has been created to help students build their annotation skills, close reading skills, and ability to identify and analyze the central idea of a text.  This lesson plan also has been created to build digital annotation skills using the Pages application for iPad.  The overall outcome of this lesson plan is to show students the benefits of annotating a text using a digital tool and then taking the information from a text and applying it to create a Public Service Announcement that will bring awareness to a real-world issue or historical event that has had a large impact on our society.  

This lesson is intended to teach students digital annotation skills and reinforce their knowledge of rhetorical devices using Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail. This resource can be modified to focus on annotating physical copies of a document and with other documents.Cover image: Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

The lesson will use a variety of skills (writing, thinking, body movement, media) in order to introduce non-verbal communication to the students.