Carol Jago offers ways to teach the works of Judith Ortiz Cofer in the high school English classroom.

Offers high school teachers an activity-based approach to teaching the works of Amy Tan, especially The Joy Luck Club and The Opposite of Fate.

Carol Jago offers readers a handy guide for bringing this celebrated author's work into the classroom, including biographical information, ideas for literature circles using Walker's short stories, sample writing lessons using Walker's poems, suggestions for teaching The Color Purple, and a wealth of resources for further investigation of Alice Walker and her work.

This guide introduces silent conversations, a collaborative learning technique that has students thinking, sharing, and reflecting about important questions—but through writing rather than talk.

Use independent, imaginative artwork and varied writing prompts to assess understanding of a given topic for a student body with differentiated needs.

In this guide, you will learn how to use the Concept Circles strategy to support vocabulary development and comprehension of complex text.

In this guide, you will learn how to use Word Walls to support vocabulary development and retention.

In this guide, you will learn how to use generative sentences to give students opportunities to apply their knowledge of new words in writing.

Teachers need to create text-dependent questions to elicit close reading. When answering these questions, students learn to reread and think deeply about the text.

Complex texts promote deep thinking and critical analysis by students. Through close reading of a complex text, students' independent reading abilities also increase.

This guide provides strategies for choosing text that is appropriate for close reading and to plan for instruction.

In this Strategy Guide, learn how to prepare yourself and your students for reading and note-taking in mobile environments.

Close readings allow primary students to engage with complex texts. Through repeated reading, students build a deep understanding of the text and critical thinking skills.

Effective differentiation begins with purposeful assessment. In this strategy guide, you'll learn how to construct an authentic performance-based reading assessment that will give you access to students' thinking before, during, and after reading.

A Concept Sort is a vocabulary and comprehension strategy used with students to introduce new topics and/or familiarize students with new vocabulary.

In this strategy, students read aloud to each other, pairing more fluent readers with less fluent readers. This strategy can also be used to pair older students with younger students to create "reading buddies."

Using Animoto, a free Web 2.0 tool, students can develop short digital videos that include music, photos, video clips, and text as well as share their creations electronically.

Through Voki, a Web 2.0 tool, students create customizable avatars for class presentations for various purposes, such as presenting biographical information, expressing an opinion, or reading a poem.

Everyone knows that Star Wars character Darth Vader is a villain. This lesson asks students to explore how they know such things about heroes and villains they encounter in texts.