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Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Sonic Patterns: Exploring Poetic Techniques Through Close Reading

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" serves as the anchor text in a five-part lesson that takes the mystery out of poetry analysis by modeling explicit strategies for pupils to employ to conduct a close reading of a poem. After...
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Lesson Plan
Louisiana Department of Education

Unit: Hamlet

For Teachers 11th - 12th Standards
Encourage readers to determine if Hamlet's madness is actually divinest sense. Class members analyze the words of the play before studying related texts, including T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," scenes from...
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Lesson Plan
3
3
Dream of a Nation

Writing a Narrative Essay

For Teachers 11th Standards
Imagine using narrative essays to encourage change. This multi-week unit plan does just that. After reading a series of articles from Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, class members examine the...
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Lesson Plan
2
2
National Endowment for the Humanities

Dramatic and Theatrical Aspects in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”: A Common Core Exemplar

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
“So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us.” Our Town is used as the text in a Common Core exemplar that examines the dramatic and...
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Lesson Plan
1
1
Curated OER

Photographic Memories

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Explore how photographs can represent a whole story to a viewer. Middle schoolers work on narrative writing techniques in this lesson, focusing on photographs from the New York Times to write first-person descriptive narratives....
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

The War of the Words: Grammar and Parts of Speech

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Here's a lesson that adds some zip to a study of parts of speech. Class members read two versions of the same article, one loaded with evocative nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, while the other is missing this sensory language....
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Diggin' Deeper - Poetry Made Relevant: Poetry And Poetic Devices

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
What do Beethoven, Bob Dylan, and Pharrell all have in common? Works by these three musicians are used to launch a study of poetry. Class members listen to passages from the music and craft a quick write about how the music makes them...
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Unit Plan
Trinity University

Framing Poetry

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
The big idea in this poetry unit plan is that structure and content work together to create meaning. Class members learn how to identify and mark the metrical patterns and line lengths used in poems. They study the structure of various...
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Lesson Plan
3
3
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Case Study: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic – Factors Beyond the Biological that Influence the Spread of Disease

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
A very timely lesson looks at the social and political factors that affect the spread of disease. Using the 1918 Influenza Pandemic as a case study, pupils research factors that influenced the spread of the disease, including the role of...
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Writing
Thoughtful Learning

Adjusting Your Writing Voice

For Students 10th - 12th Standards
"Yo, what's up?" "Nuttin!" While such a dialogue might be appropriate between friends, it would be ill-advised in more formal situations. A mini-lesson asks young writers to consider how to adjust the voice they use to bring their...
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Lesson Plan
PBS

The Power of Personal Narrative

For Teachers 10th - Higher Ed Standards
Personal narratives are powerful things. Whether told from the first-person or third-person point of view, whether in the form of an essay, a short story, novel, or video, whether fiction or fact, they capture readers and give them...
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Activity
Beverly Hills High School

Memoirs of a Legend

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
To conclude a study of the French Revolution, young historians adopt the voice of critics of Napoleon Bonaparte and lay charges against him. They then craft a memoir in Napoleon's voice that details his motives and what he sees as his...
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Lesson Plan
The New York Times

Literary Pilgrimages: Exploring the Role of Place in Writers’ Lives and Work

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
Do the places you have lived influence what you write? Class members research the lives of writers and look for how places these writers have lived might have influenced their writings. 
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Lesson Plan
1
1
NPR

Chinese American Women Lesson Plan

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
The National Women's History Museum provides a plan designed to accompany their online CyberExhibit, Chinese American Women; a History of Resilience and Resistance. After examining a series of primary and secondary source documents,...
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Lesson Plan
2
2
Maryland Department of Education

The Concept of Identity Lesson 3: The Archetypal Approach to Literary Criticism

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
As class members continue their study of approaches to literary criticism, readers examine the symbolism and archetypal patterns in John Knowles' A Separate Peace, and how these parallels are used to develop a theme in the story.
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Lesson Plan
1
1
MENSA Education & Research Foundation

The Writer’s Toolbox: What You Need to Master the Craft

For Teachers 3rd - 12th Standards
Strengthen your high schoolers' writing with a series of steps for writing successfully. With sections on organizing an essay, choosing a topic, crafting a thesis statement, and revising a draft, the instructional activity encourages...
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Lesson Plan
4
4
Curated OER

Constructing Narrative from the Migrant Experience in Literature

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Excerpts from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and from John Fante's Ask the Dust, as well as a variety of primary source documents provide the background for an examination of the migrant experience from 1920-1945.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Poetry Archive

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Listening to poems about feeling lonely and feeling like an outsider set the stage for a group activity that focuses on Stevie Smith's "Not Waving But Drowning." Groups examine the three stanzas of Smith's poem separately and identify in...
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Lesson Plan
1
1
Curated OER

Vocabulary Comic Strips

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Who says comic strips aren’t educational? Prove these naysayers wrong by asking your class members to create a comic strip for a selected vocabulary word. Using online technological tools that provide access to an array of options for...
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Lesson Plan
Edgate

Journal Maps

For Teachers 5th - 12th Standards
Inspire your class to look at their environments as if they were seeing them for the first time in order to gain a better understanding of the concept of perspective. After exploring their communities and keeping a journal of major...
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Lesson Plan
BW Walch

“Outsider” Poet Kay Ryan Goes from Poetry Club Reject to Poet Laureate

For Teachers 6th - 11th Standards
The cat might have got your tongue, but you can’t avoid the elephant in the room while you wait for the other shoe to drop. After all, the early bird gets the worm and the chickens are circling. After researching Poet Laureate Kay Ryan...
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PPT
Curated OER

Show, Don't Tell: The First Rule of Writing

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
Model for young writers how to create pictures in the minds of readers with a series of slides that demonstrate how sensory appeals enliven writing. The presentation includes opportunities for viewers to practice showing writing.
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Lesson Plan
3
3
Curated OER

Ancient Cultures News Broadcast

For Teachers 7th - 11th Standards
How does geography influence daily life? Guided by an essential question, class groups select and then research an ancient culture, and develop a news broadcast about the geographical setting and its impact on the culture. Teams select...