STEM and Workforce Literacy Materials
Maritime Marvels has 90 readings discussing famous ships and the professionals building these ships today.
There are lesson plans below to help educators integrate this into daily routines. These standards-aligned materials ensure that your students explore STEM careers and successes while building reading and writing skills.
The book has informational texts about 50 famous ships and 40 careers that support building the next famous ships.
Students will:
- answer text-dependent questions
- write their resume
- take notes on main idea & supporting details
- write a persuasive argument
- compare and contrast two texts
- summarize career paths with a mock job fair
- explore authors purpose
- create a timeline of America’s most famous ships
10 Free Lesson Plans
Lesson 1: Main Idea & Outlining
Read and explore a nonfiction text. Understanding the main idea is critical. Taking notes about the main idea and key supporting details can help students understand the text and write summary paragraphs more easily. (PDF download)
- Identify main idea of a nonfiction text.
- Support a nonfiction main idea using key details and text evidence.
Lesson 2: Comparing Readings with Venn Diagrams
Using two texts, read and explore two nonfiction texts about related topics.
Compare and contrast details in two texts using a Venn Diagram. Students could use two job-focused readings or two ship-focused readings. (PDF download)
- Read and explore two nonfiction texts about related topics.
- Compare and contrast details in two texts using a Venn Diagram.
Lesson 3: Reading & Writing Cause and Effects
Many informational texts use cause-and-effect relationships. These texts discuss historical cause and effects that are diagnosed with a notetaking strategy and the graphic organizer shown below. (PDF download)
- Read a nonfiction text about a historical ship.
- Identify cause-effect relationships in nonfiction.
- Synthesize connections between details in a text.
Lesson 4: Persuasive Writing (Convince people to agree with you!)
Students will gain information from informational texts, then use these facts to support a claim. The graphic organizer helps students organize their information and create persuasive sentences. Then, students tie together the pieces into a persuasive writing. (PDF download)
- Read and explore a nonfiction text.
- Create a personal claim based on opinion.
- Structure a persuasive argument with supporting details.
Lesson 5: Writing to Explain Problem and Solution
Many informational texts explain problems and solutions. These ship narratives often use these structures. This lesson shows how to annotate problems and solutions
- Read and explore a nonfiction text.
- Identify problem and solution connections based on a nonfiction text.
- Connect a nonfiction text to real-world experiences.
Lesson 6: Summarize Texts by Creating a Classroom Job Fair
After reading about a few careers, students are ready to host their own classroom job fair. Students share information with each other to address: What is the job title? What do people do in this job? What skills or training help people in this job? (PDF download)
- Read and explore a nonfiction text.
- Summarize the key points of a nonfiction text.
Lesson 7: Building a Naval Timeline through Famous Ships
If you and your class LOVE ships, share your excitement with a timeline showing off key details of these famous ships. Our American naval history parallels many of the themes in our shared history: technology causing big leaps forward, trying to defend our shores, and supporting our allies across the world. (PDF download)
- Read and explore a collection of nonfiction texts.
- Make connections between multiple texts.
- Create a timeline to show change over time.
Lesson 8: Exploring Author’s Purpose
Understanding why an author writes a text is a critical skill today. Students explore why someone would write these texts and explore the different reasons for writing texts. This lesson includes excellent extensions asking students to rewrite Maritime Mania texts in an engaging way. (PDF download)
- Read and explore a nonfiction text.
- Identify the author’s purpose based on key details.
Lesson 9: Summarizing the Text by Creating a Yearbook Page
We remember each other with yearbooks, let’s remember these ships by documenting their successes using a yearbook page. This creative lesson plan allows students to truly explore their creative abilities as they document the informational texts in Maritime Mania. (PDF download)
- Read and explore a set of nonfiction texts.
- Summarize the key points of nonfiction texts.
Lesson 10: Create your Resume!
Students start by completing a graphic organizer to document a career described as an informational text. Then, students can extend this learning to complete a similar graphic organizer to get their details together for their own resume. (PDF download)
You can download all 10 free lesson plans in this PDF. These lessons build annotating strategies that help students take the most useful notes. The lessons focus on building knowledge from informational texts while practicing strategies that are useful for state assessments and future careers.
Maritime Marvels
This book includes: 90 total nonfiction texts (50 on famous ships, 40 on careers) Almost 1,000 text-dependent questions 9 engaging writing activities 10 free lesson plans for educators available online You will read lots about the U.S. Navy. Different countries have different navies. A navy protects a country with ships. The United States Navy is […]