Connecticut State Department of Education

Greetings! The Connecticut State Board of Education has undertaken a months-long process of developing its 2023-2028 Five-Year Plan. After several months of meetings and retreats, engagement with thousands of stakeholders through surveys and focus groups, input by Connecticut State Department of Education staff and leadership, the latest draft, which includes goals, action items, and outcomes, has been developed. Please use the link below to access the latest draft of the plan. We welcome your review and comments using the fillable form . Draft Comprehensive Plan 2023-2028

Connecticut Core Standards

Lesson Plans - English Language Arts 

Lesson Plans for Grades K-5

Grade Title
K Chrysanthemum
K Diego Rivera – His World and Ours by Duncan Tonatiuh
K Writing for Understanding - You Can't Taste a Pickle with Your Ear
K Daisy Comes Home (Herschbach)
K Taking Care of Business
K ABC Text-plorers
K Retelling Familiar Stories that Include Key Details
K-1 My Family's Journey!
K-2 Illuminated Calligrams
K-2 I Spy Irises
K-2 Action ABC's - Learning Vocabulary with Verbs
K-2 The Wind by James Reeves
1 A Close Reading of Little Bear's Friend
1 “The Mysterious Tadpole” by Steven Kellogg
1 Text Detectives Investigate Meat Eating Plants
1 Construct a Boat & Make it Float – Construction, Trial and Error, and Boat Revisions
1 A Chilly Feeling
1 Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg
1 Determining the Central Message or Lesson of a Story
1 Julius Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes
2 Rachel Carson and Her Book that Changed the World by Laurie Lawlor
2 Sit-In – How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney
2 "Cendrillon" – A Carribean Cinderella by Robert D. San Souci
2 The Star by Jane Taylor
2 A Butterfly is Patient
2 The Rooster, the Mouse, and the Little Red Hen
2 Close Reading - Charlie Anderson
2 Let’s Read It Again: Comprehension Strategies for English-Language Learners
3-5 The Water Cycle
3 City, City: A Comparison
3 Elena’s Serenade
3 A Close Reading of The Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polacco
3 Close Reading Literature - “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”
3 Writing Opinion Essays in Response to “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”
3 Text Evidence to Support an Argument (Hayes)
3 Close Examination of a Complex Text - Because of Winn Dixie
3 A Bad Case of Bullying - Using Literature Response Groups
4 Character Super Sleuths
4 Close Reading - Lou Gehrig
4 Opinion Writing
4 “Children at Sea?”
4 “The Legend of the First Fire”
4 Close Reading of The Life and Times of the Ant
4 Determining a Theme and Summarizing Stories, Poems, and Plays
4 Applying Question-Answer Relationships to Pictures
5 Exploring Young Immigrant Stories
5 The Gymnast
5 Benjamin Franklin: Inventor, Printer, Writer
5 Close Reading – The Serum Run to Nome
5 And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? by Jean Fritz
5 Alter Egos and More with Avi’s Who Was that Masked Man, Anyway?

Lesson Plans for Grades 6-8

Grade Title
6 Bee Tongues Shrinking
6 The Black Ships Before Troy – The Story of the Iliad – excerpt from The Golden Apple
6 Counting down from 11 - Analysis of Point of View in “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros
6 The Bears of Yellowstone National Park
6 “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury
6 Close Reading - The Great Fire by Jim Murphy
7 “Child Soldiers - Analysis of News Articles (Lesson #1)
7 “A Retrieved Reformation” by O. Henry – Inference and Evidence
7 Current Events in Africa
7 Mark Twain-The Glorious Whitewasher
7-8 Can Dogs Smell Cancer?
8 “1984” by George Orwell with Mini-assessment
8 Writing an Objective Summary (Abby Sparrow)
8 A Letter to Harriet Tubman
8 The Landlady by Roald Dahl, a Close Reading
8 “In Response to Executive Order 9066 – All Americans of Japanese Descent Must Report to Relocation Center”
8 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Written by Himself

Lesson Plans for Grades 9-12

Grade Title
9 Communicating on Local Issues - Exploring Audience in Persuasive Letter Writing
9-10 Should the United States Have Entered World War I?
9-10 An Introduction with Death: A Close Reading of the Prologue from The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
9-12 How Will Human Rights Play Out with Changing Demographics?
9-12 How Does Immigration Shape the Nation’s Identity?
9-12 The Little Rock Nine and the Children’s Movement
9-12 For the Sake of Argument - Writing Persuasively to Craft Short, Evidence-Based Editorials
9-12 Literary Parodies - Exploring a Writer’s Style through Imitation
11 “Living Like Weasels” by Annie Dillard (Close Reading Lesson)
11 Andrew Carnegie – “The Gospel of Wealth” (1889) – A Close Reading
11-12 A Need for Sleep: A Close Reading of a Soliloquy from King Henry IV, Part ll
11-12 Teaching About Children’s Rights Through the Work of Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi
11-12 Learning from Disaster—Exploring the Ebola Epidemic
11-12 I Am an American Day by Learned Hand