Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Diversity in World Literature Lesson 12: Author's Purpose - Yeats and Achebe
Is there such a thing as fate/luck? Can one fight destiny? As part of their study of Chinua Achebe's purpose in writing Things Fall Apart, class members answer these questions from Achebe's point of view and then from William Butler...
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of The Crucible by Arthur Miller
A 20-page guide is a must-have for any instructor, seasoned veteran, or first year-teacher, using Arthur Miller's The Crucible as an anchor text. The guide begins with extensive background information about Miller and the McCarthy era...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to Short Story Writers Say
There are so many authors of short stories, and your class can have the chance to study quite a few. This seventh instructional activity in a series of fourteen continues the decision-making process for the final assessment: a short...
Penguin Books
Teacher’s Guide: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
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...
Curated OER
Frederick Douglass Expository Reading Guide
Help your high schoolers navigate the cross-curricular text Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass with this reading guide. The questions guide learners through composing a summary of any given chapter in the text. In addition,...
New York City Department of Education
What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue: How Did Jazz Influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
How did jazz influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Class members read some of Ellison's non-fiction writings about blues and jazz, listen to records, watch videos, and engage in student-centered discussions. They then produce podcasts...
Santa Ana Unified School District
Getting to the Core: Early American Poets
How do poets convey emotion and represent their views of life? Pupils learn more about Whitman and Dickinson through the unit and analyze their bold reinvention of craft and style for poets to come. Looking at classic pieces such as...
C3 Teachers
Black Women Writers: What Gets Black Women Heard?
Zora Neal Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou are featured in a guided inquiry unit. High schoolers research the lives and works of these and other Black women writers and craft an argument, using evidence from their research, to...
Curated OER
Evaluating Accuracy and Adequacy
Evaluate non-fiction works with your English class. While practicing a variety of strategies detailed in the plan, readers compare and contrast the information in three non-fiction passages about the same topic. They then discuss the...
K20 LEARN
Analyzing Literary Figures: Analyzing Literature
The author study gets an update in a research project designed for high schoolers. Scholars search for information about literary figures that connects them to their times, their works, their themes, and other writers. Researchers also...
Penguin Books
Teacher's Guide: When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Julie Otsuka's haunting novel, When the Emperor Was Devine, is the subject of a 14-page teacher's guide. The guide includes the text of an interview with Otsuka, background information about Japanese immigration to the United States, and...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Exploring Text with the iMovie Application
Get your class going on one of the final assessments for a unit on short stories by introducing iMovie and its main features. In this tenth lesson in a series of fourteen, pupils take some time to explore iMovie before conducting an...
University of Virginia
Analyzing Social Commentary in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn continues to be one of the most frequently banned books. The satire and social commentary present challenges when using the book as a core text. Direct readers' attention to how Twain uses plot,...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Reading Literature - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce’s short story, is used to model how structural moves, the decisions an author makes about setting, point of view, time order, etc., can be examined to reveal an author’s purpose. Groups...
Sandra Effinger
Bulletin Board Project
Imagine a project that informs and entertains. Replace book reports with a bulletin board that highlights all the important elements of a novel. Readers research the author, create a timeline of events in the story, write a character...
Curated OER
Grade A: The Market for a Yale Woman's Eggs by Jessica Cohen
What would it be like to sell your eggs to a couple who can't have children on their own? Could you even imagine it? As most of us have never been in this position, this descriptive essay is really quite interesting. The reading itself...
Curated OER
A P Literary Terms
Is a list of literary terms found frequently on AP English exams of value to test takers? Now there's a rhetorical question. Here's a list that provides definitions for everything from allegory to vernacular. To say the list is of value...
Novelinks
The Tempest: QAR
Asking questions about a text is an effective way to improve reading comprehension. Apply the Question Answer Response strategy to your unit on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. As kids read each passage, they decide if the answer can...
Curated OER
Valentine's Day: Love Letters
Oh the joys of love! As a special Valentine's Day assignment, budding authors research the life of one of the most romantic poets, Keats. They read the letter, "To Fanny Brawne, 13 October 1819," then compose a love letter of their own....
National Endowment for the Humanities
John Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath": The Inner Chapters
Here’s a must-have resource for anyone using The Grapes of Wrath. Everything from guiding questions to background information, from photographs to documentary films, from activities to assessments is included in a richly detailed packet...
Novelinks
The Book Thief: Anticipation Guide
Introduce the major themes in Markus Zusak's award-winning novel, The Book Thief, with an anticipation guide that asks readers to agree or disagree with a series of statements.
Ohio Department of Education
A Glossary of Literary Terms
If you're tired of defining allusion, onomatopoeia, and satire for your language arts students, hand out a complete list of literary devices to keep the terms straight. Each term includes a definition that is easy to understand and...
Novelinks
The Book Thief: Concept Analysis
Designed for teachers who plan on using Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, this packet includes background information about the author, themes addressed in and issues raised by the novel, a list of research and project ideas, and links to...
Novelinks
The Hobbit: Question Answer Relationship
Chapter 12 of The Hobbit provides the text for an exercise that asks readers to use the QAR strategy to develop and respond to questions about story.