ALEX Resources

Title: Reading Like a Detective
Description: This lesson is about using detective skills to be better nonfiction readers. Students will gather clues from the text to make assumptions and connections that will solve, and make meaning about the text. The students will use nonfiction text context clues, and pictures to realize that the author’s purpose is for them to find ALL the clues and make meaning of a topic. Students use clues such as text evidence to make connections and understand text.   Students use key details such as text evidence to gather information about a topic or the authors intended purpose.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (2) 28: Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question. [W.2.8]

Title: Why Did You Write This?
Description: In this lesson, students will learn the reasons an author writes a selection. They will use various books and articles to determine the purpose of each text. This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (3) 15: Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text. [RI.3.6]

Title: A Weed is a Flower
Description: In this lesson, students will learn to identify the main purpose of a text and distinguish it from their own point of view with the book A Weed is a Flower:  The Life of George Washington Carver by Aliki and other informational texts. This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (3) 29: Recall information from experiences or gather information from print and digital sources; take brief notes on sources and sort evidence into provided categories. [W.3.8]

Title: Fact or Fiction: Learning About Worms Using Diary of a Worm
Description: Students often believe that fiction writers make everything up, seldom realizing how research worms its way into entertaining writing. In this lesson, students read Diary of a Worm to find out how fact merges with fiction.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (2) 32: Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences. [SL.2.4]

Title: Rain, Ice, Steam: Using Reading to Support Inquiry About the Water Cycle
Description: Water is always moving in a continuous cycle from liquid to solid to gas and back again. Students study this never-ending cycle through shared readings, center activities, and experiments.
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (2) 38: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on Grade 2 reading and content, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies. [L.2.4]

Title: Fact or Fiction?
Digital Tool: Genres of Literature Flipchart.
Web Address URL: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-us/Resources/Item/110747/genres-of-literature#.UgLdd18o5jo
Standard(s):
[ELA2015] (2) 15: Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe. [RI.2.6]
Digital Tool Description: This is a Promethean Flipchart on Genres of Literature.  For this first section on fact or fiction, you can use the first few slides or go as far as you want with it.  It depends on the level of your students.  It is an interactive flip chart with videos and activities that the student can do on the Whiteboard or on individual computers.  The third through fifth slides deal with nonfiction and fiction.  Students will be presented with these slides and then be allowed to work them on the board themselves.