Informational Texts

Exposing students to expository texts is crucial. But, we want to find sources that are engaging, contemporary, and tied to our content. Ask students to partner or team up and discuss the curricular connections. I always suggest the following sources for high-interest and leveled texts. 
1. Newsela
2. Readworks
3. npr.org
4. PBS Newshour
4. TweenTribune

Listen, Speak, & Write!

Embed analysis, communication, collaboration, and writing into your content area, while connecting your curriculum to the real world in 10min or less! 

Here's a quick and easy idea that I recommend incorporating once a week:


1. Students listen or watch a current event podcast (or vid) related to your subject area (I recommend npr.org - Science, Music, Art, History, Math) 
2. Partners or teams are given 2-3min to discuss and connect what they heard to the content area.  
4. Teams write a quick 2-3 sentence response utilizing content specific vocabulary and/or sentence frames.
5. Share out and praise their observations! 

Cite This!

As students are given more evidence-based writing tasks, they will be required to properly cite information they find on the net. Here's a cool Google Plugin that makes things a bit easier: Cite This For Me

Annotate the Web!

Students need to know how to research and curate the web as 21st century learners. With Scrible, they can do just that for free! Watch this video to see how it works! 

Video Editor - Edpuzzle

With Edpuzzle, you can grab portions of YouTube, Vimeo, TeacherTube, etc. videos, splice them together, add your own voice-over, and even embed questions. Check out the demo video and FAQ page. Give it a try!