Students actively engage with texts by writing reflections and insights before, during, and after reading to enhance their comprehension and critical thinking skills.

Students analyze images to activate prior knowledge, elicit interest in a unit of study or topic, and deepen understanding and connections.

Students analyze political cartoons using a structured approach to identify symbols, understand context, and interpret deeper meanings to build critical media literacy skills.

Annotation is a powerful active reading strategy in which students take notes, highlight, and pose questions to improve their understanding.

Students organize ideas into an outline with evidence-based claims and counterclaims, strengthening their ability to build a well-reasoned argument.

Annotating and analyzing assessment items and answer choices enhances students’ critical thinking skills, comprehension, and problem-solving abilities.

Students unpack a text’s content by pausing after each section to think about, discuss, and write a one-sentence summary of the main ideas.

Students use a cause and effect graphic organizer to demonstrate analytical understanding of the impacts of events, policies, or people.

Students collaboratively complete a vocabulary exploration graphic organizer with definitions, sentences, and synonyms/antonyms for new lesson-specific words.

Students use a column notes organizer for audio, video, or written content to organize their thoughts about what they have seen, heard, or read.

Conversation Circles facilitate discussion of text-inspired ideas in a structured format through movement and dialogue with peers.

Students read an informational text and complete a graphic organizer to examine the impact of big moments, important figures, and significant innovations.

Students circulate to different tables to respond to teacher-provided topics or questions and add on to the insights provided by classmates.

Students use this multimodal method to acquire new vocabulary by drawing a picture and writing a sentence to foster vocabulary retention.

Students use this strategy for reflection, processing new information, recalling key details, and identifying and organizing relevant information.

Students will demonstrate understanding of a text by responding to a question with text-based evidence that they name, describe, and interpret.

Students are assigned/given a position to defend using text evidence; they are then paired with a peer to discuss opposing perspectives and counterclaims.

Students use a pre-made foldable or paper with guided instructions to create a visual with sections and headers to record text evidence, ideas, and vocabulary.

Students use a Frayer Model, a four-square/quadrant graphic organizer, to activate background knowledge and foster vocabulary acquisition.

Students explore teacher-displayed prompts in groups, fostering active learning, critical thinking, and peer discussion on course topics.

Students engage in the reciprocal exchange of ideas by sharing their insights and observations with multiple partners about a question, image, or text.

This directed visual analysis tool requires students to critically examine image components such as objects and lighting to form ideas.

This strategy helps students link key terms visually, promoting vocab growth, critical thinking, and collaboration both pre- and post-reading.

This metacognitive discussion tool asks students to be flexible and reflective listeners and thinkers and evaluate their statements about topics.

Students create vocabulary journals that connect academic terms to visual elements, personal experiences, and cultural knowledge to build language.

Jigsaw promotes collaboration and movement by assigning students to expert and home groups to facilitate the sharing of well-understood ideas.

K-W-L is a graphic organizer/chart system students use to determine what they already know, what they want to know, and what they learned during a lesson.

Students bridge informal and formal language through structured documentation, building awareness of language differences and academic vocabulary.

Teachers use a structured matrix to plan comprehensive language supports across receptive and productive domains for MLL student success.

The Linked Words strategy connects new vocabulary to familiar terms. Students create thematic links and draw on personal knowledge.

This strategy helps students group words and find connections while boosting vocabulary, critical thinking, and comprehension.

Make it Stick! graphic organizers build vocabulary by asking students to analyze new vocabulary using images, examples, and contexts for words as they read.

Mini glossaries are used to foster vocabulary comprehension and retention so that students can integrate learned vocabulary into their written expression.

Paraphrasing requires students to maintain the integrity of a passage or text by capturing the main ideas and details without directly quoting.

Students create and explore diverse questions about texts, enhancing comprehension through inquiry and discussion.

Students create Who, What, Where, When, Why, How questions about an assigned or selected topic to encourage curiosity and analytical inquiry.

This game-based vocabulary strategy requires students to take turns rolling a die; the number they roll determines the vocabulary task they will perform.

See-Think-Wonder graphic organizers help students unpack visual stimuli by documenting their observations, interpretations, and questions about images.

Students demonstrate their reading and listening comprehension skills by homing in on a text’s main ideas to distill it to a six-word summary.

Summarization through note-taking is an information management and processing tool that helps students engage with text to create concise understanding.

Students use four scaffolded questions to activate prior knowledge, refine ideas, and share viewpoints, supporting reasoning and giving teachers valuable feedback at any point in a lesson.

Students adequately develop ideas independently by being given ample time to consider a question or topic before pairing up to share ideas.

Students create visual diagrams with drawings and labels to map relationships between concepts to help them understand and retain complex content.

Visual note-taking can be paired with traditional note-taking; students use simple symbols and drawings to capture key points.

Teachers can use this visual technique to build students’ vocabulary by pairing words with student-created symbols, pictures, and phrases.

This word-sorting exercise encourages students to group new vocabulary based on thematic concepts to deepen their understanding of a topic or text.

Students personalize their understanding of new vocabulary by drawing pictures and writing words, phrases, and names they associate with new vocabulary.