A visual literary lesson provides learners with OPTIC (Observations, Predictions, Themes, Inferences, Conclusions), a reading strategy to help them understand and interpret visual and written texts. Scholars practice the strategy with a...

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.

An 11-page teacher's guide that focuses on Delia Owens' bestseller Where the Crawdads Sing is packed with discussion questions and activities. Text-dependent questions, activities, and writing prompts are also included. It's a valuable...

A 10-page guide to John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men includes a brief plot summary, information about preparing readers for the language in the novel, pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading questions, essay prompts, and project...

To make the point that there are many forms of language, each with its own purpose, class members select 10 lines from Doescher's play, translate these lines first into contemporary English and then into "SMS/Tweet." 

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass provides the text for a study of how writers bring characters to life. Using the provided character mapping worksheets, readers respond to questions and then write a short character sketch.

As part of their reading of The Hobbit, readers create a biopoem for one of Tolkien's characters.

The metaphor of a pot of soup and a series of colorful templates remind young writers of the elements that make for a rich story. Pepper the plot with carrot/character, potato/point of view, corn/conflict, tomato/theme, and season with...

What do Robert Downey Jr., Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Fritz Weaver, Roger Moore, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Daffy Duck have in common? Why, it’s elementary, my dear Watson! They all have portrayed Sherlock Holmes. Literary detectives...

Here’s a series of exercises designed to be used after readers have finished reading The Hobbit. Pairs identify the speaker of a series of quotes, match characters with qualities, and provide evidence from the story to support their...

Explore gender stereotypes by analyzing how male and female characters are depicted in comic books. Using the provided Comic Book Analysis sheet, learners record the attributes of male and female comic book characters. Then the whole...

As your authors prepare to write a hypothetical novel, they need all the inspiration they can find! Using a book they have already read (and enjoyed), learners complete a literary analysis by filling in eight short-answer questions....

Lensey Namioka’s Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear provides an opportunity for young readers to observe how writers bring their characters to life. Each class member selects a character to trace through the novel, recording...

Brian Jacques’ novel Redwall provides the focus for a series of lessons involving the analysis of folklore. Adopting the persona of a character, groups write letters in the voice of their character, assemble a collage using Microsoft...

Work on narrative writing with this instructional activity, in which middle schoolers analyze the characters from a selected piece of literature and write narrative diary pieces as the character. They work to understand the point of view...

A comprehensive and immersive series of lessons that examines various aspects of story development leads learners into writing a narrative of their own. Writers develop an understanding of the writing process as they use the learning...

Seventh graders use literary terms while discussing literature with their peers. They explore literature on a deeper level. Students formulate their opinions regarding response to literature, as this lesson plan helps students practice...

Prompt your class to interact with Jack London's Call of the Wild. By analyzing the events in the novel, middle schoolers discover how human experiences create who a person becomes. They critique and analyze the reading, focusing on...

Read then role-play the characters from story of If You Give A Pig a Pancake. Young actors use improvisation and characterization to create the characters from the story. They will also write and role play original version of the story...

A 46-slide presentation focuses on ways to describe characters in stories, how to create story characters, and how to show a character's personality in a student-created story. The colorful and engaging slides provide lots of great ideas...

Round, flat, static, dynamic. As part of a characterization study, scholars review the different types of characters and create a slide show demonstrating how a dynamic character in a story they have read changes throughout the tale.

Capulets and Montagues. Sharks and Jets. Nortenos and Surenos. Gradwitzes and Znaeyms? Hector Hugh Munro's short story "The Interlopers" invites high schoolers to consider the causes of conflicts and reflect on what it takes to resolve...

"Who am I?" Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Necklace," Julio Naboa Polanco's poem "Identity," and a clip from a Jason Bourne film provide learners with a context to consider the traits that makeup identity. Scholars create a...

Willy Wonka takes center stage in a lesson about direct and indirect characterization. Scholars read a passage from the story about Wonka's Grand Entrance and watch a film clip of the same, noting examples of direct and indirect...