Curated OER
Perfecting My Pal's Poe Paragraph
After analyzing the compelling first paragraph of Edgar Allen Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death," high schoolers draft original opening paragraphs using techniques identified Poe's writing. The relationship between suspense...
K20 LEARN
The Most Dangerous Game
Readers of "The Most Dangerous Game" must argue which of Richard Connell's characters is the protagonist or antagonist. The lesson begins with scholars reading selected passages from the story and making predictions about who they...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Making Dances From Stories
After reading a short story, learners will create dances that show homophones and verbs. Their dance sequences involve three verbs and transition movements in between each verb. Tip: Have the class dance out the sequence of events from...
New Hampshire Bureau of Adult Education
Dystopian Literature: from Fiction to Fact
Imagine an entire course devoted to dystopian literature. If that concept appeals to you, check out this course that uses 1984 as the anchor text and includes classic short stories as well.
Prestwick House
Star Wars and the Hero's Journey
Is Luke Skywalker the archetype of a literary hero? Follow the path of the Hero's Journey with an engaging lesson plan that details the plot structure, applies it to Star Wars: A New Hope, and invites class members to choose their own...
Digital Writing and Research Lab's – Lesson Plans
Teaching Close Reading through Short Composition/Revision
This activity may have writers evaluate short compositions, but their subjects are quite tall: great Americans. Pupils read one another's compositions and closely examine how specific phrases and diction contribute to shaping American...
K20 LEARN
A Multimodal Approach To Edgar Allan Poe Using Drawing To Understand An Author's Style
True! Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" makes readers nervous. But how? Young scholars create a drawing while listening to a reading of Poe's eerie tale to understand how writers create the mood of their stories and what their writing style...
K20 LEARN
Femme Fatales - The Landlady and Mrs. Maloney: Character Analysis Across Multiple Texts
Two stories by Roald Dahl, "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "The Landlady" provide readers an opportunity to compare stories by the same author. After a close reading of the stories, teams select a character from one of the tales, craft...
K20 LEARN
"The Lady, Or The Tiger?" Which Do You Choose?: Internal and External Conflict
"How come there's no ending?" After a close reading of Frank R. Stockton's tale "The Lady, or the Tiger?" in which scholars examine each of the main characters' conflicts and motivations, writers craft their own ending using textual...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 2
How can you read a character's tone? What about a narrator's tone? Analyze Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with a lesson that focuses on how word choice can change tone and how tone can affect the development...
Hampton-Brown
From "First Crossing"
Young scholars look closely at four tales taken from the collection of short stories, First Crossing edited by Donald R. Galloby. While examining the life of four teenagers and the lives they lead as U.S. immigrants, your enthusiastic...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The Hobbit
From dragons to dwarves, from riddles to rings, the great adventure story of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien has captivated generations of readers of all ages. An educator's guide explores the novel's literary elements, including the...
EngageNY
Planning for Writing: Revisiting “Key Elements of Mythology” and Determining a Theme in the Myth of Cronus
Refresh my memory please. Scholars quickly read over the Myth of Cronus to refresh their memories of the story. They then get in groups and write parts of the myth on sticky notes that relate to the elements of mythology, sticking their...
Simon & Schuster
Curriculum Guide to: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The activities in a curriculum guide to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein provide readers with an opportunity to explore various concepts in depth. First, groups research controversial scientists, examine their work, and decide whether or not,...
Phantom of Opera
The Phantom of the Opera: Ideas for Research and Discussion
You could spend a full day discussing The Phantom of the Opera and not scratch the surface, but a set of lessons about the literary elements and themes of the musical production is a great start. Young thespians build upon the background...
Curated OER
Morality "Tails" East and West: European Fables and Buddhist Jataka Tales
Have your class explore Buddhist Jataka Tales to compare and contrast them to European fables. After defining fables, Jataka tales, and the elements of each, learners identify themes and patterns for both types of narratives and the...
US Institute of Peace
Observing Conflict
Identifying conflict is important, but how do you handle conflict when it comes? Students use a plot mountain to graph two role-play scenarios about interpersonal conflicts.
Missouri Department of Elementary
Stressed Out Sally
Life changes may cause stress. Here, scholars identify stressful situations in a peer's life and offer coping skills to make for a better day. A short story, "Stressed Out Sally," provides pupils with a look inside a bad day. After...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 14
Karen Russell's short story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" has a unique structure that adds value to the story. With the fourteenth activity in a unit about literary analysis and textual support, analyze how Russell has...
Student Achievement Partners
Eleven
Turning 11 comes with a range of emotions. Explore those emotions by reading the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. Readers analyze the main character's reactions to the events of her day. Then, they write an essay describing what...
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast: Literary Analysis
Great for a reading intervention or remedial Language Arts class, this lesson uses two stories from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III ("Terri Jackson" and "Mary Lou" to reinforce note-taking skills, story elements, and comparing and...
Curated OER
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment
What are the pros and cons of prolonging life? Incorporate real-world issues into the study of literature using Dr. Heidegger's Experiment. Through the exploration of pre-determined websites, scholars consider several related literary...
Curated OER
The Rest Cure: Gender in Medicine and Literature
Read and discuss "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and the gender issues that the story brings up. Use articles from the time period to analyze, complete with specific discussion questions. After two days, scholars write an essay based on topics...
K20 LEARN
Comparing/Contrasting Characters Through Two-Voice Poems: Characterization
Two babies, two fathers, two experiences, two worlds. Partners craft two-voice poems to capture the points of view of two men with very different lives who have just become fathers.
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