National Humanities Center
Teaching The Great Gatsby: A Common Core Close Reading Seminar
The 41 slides in a professional development seminar model how to use close reading techniques to examine the many layers of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In addition to passages from the novel, slides provide biographical...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Literary Text: Close Reading of Prose: Practice 2
This activity focuses on close reading, the careful, sustained reading of a text. One strategy to help you read closely is to ask yourself questions such as What is your overall impression of the passage? What mood does the passage...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Community Progress [Pdf]
"Community Progress" is a one page, realistic fiction passage about how students created a mural for their school, which generated lots of attention from the press, parents, and other schools. It is followed by constructed-response...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Grant Park [Pdf]
"Grant Park" is a one page, nonfiction passage about Chicago creating a landfill by putting the trash from the Chicago fire in 1971 into the lake, on which they built Grant Park. It is followed by an open-ended question which requires...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Community Progress [Pdf]
"Community Progress" is a one page, realistic fiction passage about how students created a mural for their school, which generated lots of attention from the press, parents, and other schools. It is followed by constructed-response...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Mama's Happy Christmas [Pdf]
"Mama's Happy Christmas" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about children creating a play for their sick mother on Christmas day. It is followed by constructed-response questions which require students to provide evidence from...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Early Chicago Environment & People [Pdf]
"Early Chicago Environment & People" is a one page, nonfiction passage about the Native Americans who lived in what is now Chicago. It explains how they lived and how Chicago got its name. It is followed by constructed-response...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Early Chicago Environment and People [Pdf]
"Early Chicago Environment and People" is a one page, nonfiction passage about the early Native Americans who settled in what is now Chicago. It is followed by questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Mama's Happy Christmas [Pdf]
"Mama's Happy Christmas" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about children creating a play for their sick mother on Christmas day. It is followed by constructed-response questions which require students to provide evidence from...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Their Eyes Were Watching God: Folk Speech, Figurative Language
In this lesson plan, students will consider Their Eyes Were Watching God: Folk Speech and Figurative Language. Worksheets and other supporting materials can be found under the Resources tab. This lesson plan provides students with an...