"Make new friends but keep the old" is a wise saying. However, True Son, a main character in The Light in the Forest, struggles doing just that. Once living among the white people, he was taken into an Indian tribe for several years....

Turtle, an 11-year-old girl in Turtle in Paradise, travels to Florida to live with her aunt. With the Great Depression all around her, Turtle safely hides within the shell she created around herself but soon opens up after the move....

Even someone with a dark side can make a good decision—and vice versa. Readers explore Cole's traits and decisions in Ben Mikaelson's Touching Spirit Bear and analyze his sunside and...

The anticipation guide for Words by Heart is the first of a series of six, contains lesson plans for the activity as well as a handout to be completed individually, in pairs, or as a class. It sparks interest for the text...

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...

The works of Jacqueline Woodson introduce readers to diverse characters and themes. A guide covers many of the author's best-known books such as Brown Girl Dreaming and Locomotion. Dive & Discuss and Explore & Extend activities...

Delve into the delightful depths of J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings with a thought-provoking reader's guide. With literary questions for the novel as well as the subsequent The Two Towers and The Return of the King, the...

Enrich a unit on The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros with a selection of related activities. The packet contains nine activities that go from pre-reading through wrapping up the novel. Young readers work on studying...

Many critics consider William Golding's Lord of the Flies as one of the best English language novels of the 20th century! It is also one of the 100 most challenged books taught in schools! Instructors willing to accept the challenge of...

To conclude their study of Out of the Dust, the 1998 Newbery Medal winning verse novel, individuals craft a narrative essay based on one of the themes in Karen Hesse's novel.

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...

In this Language Arts worksheet, students answer 4 questions about the theme of the novel Home Child. For example, "What hope do you think Mrs. Fellowes has for Arthur?"

Here is a one-stop planning resource for Louis Sachar's Newbery Award-winning book Holes. You'll find 21 links to worksheets and various activities designed to span the entire book. Learners draw to help analyze settings and...

To prepare for a reading of Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse’s 1998 Newbery Medal winning verse novel, class members complete an anticipation guide that focuses attention on themes readers will encounter in the novel.

What are the important character traits of a good military leader? Individuals ponder this question before reading Orson Scott Card's science fiction novel, Ender's Game. After individuals rank a series of qualities,...

Author Laura Ingalls Wilder takes readers back to the good ole days. In Little House in the Big Woods, she tells scholars about a family living in the woods during the 1870s. While reading, they complete sentences with vocabulary words,...

Fathers and daughters often create a bond of great strength. Is Meg's bond strong enough to save her father? A Wrinkle In Time follows Meg and her friends as they find themselves in a supernatural world; Meg just hopes she finds her...

Captain Long John Silver himself would consider this anticipation guide a treasure. Full of rereading predictions for readers to consider, the anticipation guide makes the class excited to begin reading Robert Lois Stevenson's Treasure...

Before you begin reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, read over this comprehensive handout that gives you a plethora of information regarding the story's summary, organizational structure, central...

Ghost by Jason Reynolds is a coming-of-age book that resonates with teenagers who have experienced childhood trauma. Explore the novel with an interactive resource that focuses on the author's use of symbolism, particularly with...

True friends stick together. In the case of The Wind In The Willows, the friends just happen to be a toad, mole, rat, and badger who team up to beat the weasels. The resource covers the first chapter of their raucous adventures. Scholars...

At first glance Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street seems to be a charming collection of vignettes about a young Latina's observations about the people in her Chicago neighborhood. Developing questions that prompt readers to think...

Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida is used in an activity that models how to develop questions to aid in comprehension of a text.