PBS
The Chronicles of Narnia
C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia is about far more than the adventures of a group of children in an imaginary kingdom. Find out what else it's about in a short Great American Read video.
PBS
Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska is the subject of a short PBS video that encourages viewers to read John Green's award-winning young adult novel about first love.
PBS
One Hundred Years of Solitude | The Great American Read
One Hundred Years of Solitude introduces readers to magic realism. Told in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel Prize-winning novel is a candidate for The Great American Read program and aficionados...
PBS
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams' hysterical send-up of bureaucratic thinking, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is the focus of a Great American Read video that urges viewers to vote for one of the greatest satires since Gulliver's Travels.
PBS
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Rather than windmills, Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize-winning A Confederacy of Dunces, battles against modernity. Find out why Professor Walter Isaacson thinks Toole's novel should get viewers' votes...
PBS
Documenting Rural Southern Black Culture
"Sweet Speech," the vernacular of southern blacks that Zora Neale Hurston captures in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is the subject of a resource from the PBS American Masters series. An anthropologist, Hurston drew on her...
PBS
Ready Player One
Ready Player One has been praised as a novel that captures the vitality, the allure, and the essence of the virtual reality experience. Speakers in a short video share their rationale for why Ernest Clines' dystopian novel should be...
PBS
1984 by George Orwell
Reverend Katrina Foster offers her rationale for why Winston Smith, the tragic hero of George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, is her favorite literary character.
PBS
The Call of the Wild
Jack London's books feature male characters, but that doesn't mean they're just for boys! Chelsea Clinton and Shanna Peeples discuss the underlying messages of love and sacrifice in The Call of the Wild, as well as the conflict of man...
Yossarian the Grammarian
English Composition Manifesto: Normal Prose
This video lesson from Yossarian the Grammarian explains the different types of sentences in prose. [8:59]
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Connotation and Denotation
This video lesson focuses on the difference between the connotation and denotation of synonyms. The denotation is the dictionary definition, while the connotation adds feelings, images, or associations to the dictionary definition....
Imagine Learning Classroom
Learn Zillion: Analyze How a Poet's Word Choices Contribute to the Poem's Meaning
In this video, you will learn how to determine the difference between what is directly stated and what is meant by considering the effect of word choice on tone. [7:47]
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: The Sound of Language: Alliteration, Assonance, and Onomatopoeia
This video explains what alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia are, and how they are used in literary text. [6:20]
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Denotation: Lesson 1
This video lesson introduces denotation and provides examples. It is 1 of 3 in the series titled "Denotation." [2:54] L.9-10.5b nuances, L.11-12.5b Nuance
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Crash Course English Literature: How and Why We Read
In which John Green kicks off the Crash Course Literature mini series with a reasonable set of questions. Why do we read? What's the point of reading critically? John will argue that reading is about effectively communicating with other...