Off-Limits Places - High School Reading Comprehension + Analyzing Text Features

Cool places you can’t actually visit? Tell me more! This travel blog article is perfect for high school reading comprehension and practicing analyzing text features. Students will be HOOKED and you’ll get awesome writing samples you actually want to read.

Your high school reading comprehension resource includes:

✅ “Cool Places You Can’t Actually Visit” travel blog article

✅ Analyzing Text Features practice or test-prep

✅ Travel Blog Project materials

After reading the nonfiction passage, students answer multiple-choice questions to practice analyzing text features. Then, alone or in groups, they write their own travel blog article.

Project Materials:

1. Editable brainstorming worksheet
2. Editable analytic & holistic rubrics
3. Editable student reflection sheet

Hint: If you want to make this a “low research” activity, you can have students write about their school. “5 Secret Lunch Spots” and “7 Epic Locker Locations” make great topics that students can write about from experience without the added research step. 

More about the high school reading comprehension passage:

This 1200-word passage covers five topics and includes text features like subheadings, captions, photos, a map, and a timeline. 

A free online readability checker scored the article like this. This should be used as a general guideline only.

Flesch Reading Ease score: 51.5

Gunning Fog: 12

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9.5

The Coleman-Liau Index: 11

The SMOG Index: 9.2

Automated Readability Index: 8.7

Linsear Write Formula : 8.3

I recommend this article for 9th and 10th-graders.

❤️ If you loved my Abandoned Places Creative Writing activity, you'll love this companion passage.

What teachers are saying about "Abandoned Places":

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “This has become a staple resource in my classroom each year. My students LOVE this assignment. High engagement, excellent stories.” -The Blue Ribbon Teacher

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “This is the perfect segue from narrative writing into the storytelling unit I am starting in Creative Writing!” -Ashley F.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “My students absolutely loved this! My students were engaged and invested in their stories. They were so interested in the abandoned places and found the process easy to navigate. My students said this was their favorite creative writing activity of the year! Thank you for this awesome resource!” -Brittany B.

About Your Resource:

Your resource contains a PDF of the Teacher’s Guide, article, and analyzing text features practice. Your project materials are editable in PowerPoint or a clone (like OpenOffice). Please email me if you have any questions! :)

⭐️ If you LOVE high school reading comprehension resources to hook readers, be sure to check out Burnbridge Breakouts, a series of reading intervention escape rooms!

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If you have any questions, I’d love to hear from you!

-Danielle @ Nouvelle ELA