After completing Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose, class members assume the voice of Gemma and craft a personal letter to her granddaughter telling Becca how she feels about Becca’s actions and the discoveries at Chelmno. Complete directions for...

Readers of  Lord of the Flies hunt down direct and indirect examples of how William Golding brings his characters to life. After instructors guide learners through the process of collecting evidence of these two types of...

Willy Wonka takes center stage in a instructional activity 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...

Class groups assume the identity of one of the primary human characters in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They create a body biography that identifies the most important traits of their character, translate these traits into...

To demonstrate their understanding of characterization in The Winter's Tale, groups create a Facebook profile for one of the characters in Shakespeare's play.

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...

Class members take center stage as groups perform scenes from Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope. Actors are encouraged to add stage directions to the script, as well as create costumes and props to...

Readers create a literary scrapbook for one of the characters in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and fill it with mementoes, journal entries, letters, etc. A great way to get kids to think about characterization.

Even an outline can give you enough information to execute an awsome project. The tasks for each of the seven weeks of this project are defined, as well as the objective and specific content facilitated through the project. Learners will...

What are the musical elements that characterize a school's fight song or its alma mater? Class members listen to examples of fight songs and alma maters from various schools, play a listening game, and then create a list of the...

Readers learn how to use both direct and indirect characterization clues provided by Charles Dickens to understand the complexity of Ebenezer Scrooge's character. Scholars collect evidence of comments Scrooge hears, how he responds to...

Readers of Nineteen Eighty-Four engage in a close reading exercise that directs their focus to the key details Orwell provides in the opening paragraphs to introduce his dystopian society. The included worksheeet is divided into three...

Oskar Schell's narrative about his expedition to find out more about his father serves as a model for writers who are crafting their own narratives. Class members choose two characters from the novel and collect examples of the methods...

Introduce literature circles with Roland Smith's novels. Your seventh graders will see the activity modeled as you read The Three Little Pigs together and apply the format to a Roland Smith novel of their choice. The lesson includes...

Class members conclude their reading of The House on Mango Street with an assignment that asks them to compose letters to characters using their own voices or that of another character in Cisneros' story.

How can a screenplay create meaning and drama in ways that other forms of writing cannot? That is the question class members must answer as they compare the cantina scene of the screenplay for George Lucas's Star Wars: A New Hope...

How does reading a drama differ from reading a novel? Middle schoolers become playwrights and explore these differences. After viewing the A&E movie,"The Crossing," groups create stage directions, write dialogue, and design sets and...

“There is nothing that becommeth a maid better than soberness, silence, shamefastness, and chastity, both of body & mind.” This line, from Thomas Bentley ‘s The Monument of Matrons published in 1582, typifies the way women were...

Eight lessons and worksheets comprise a curriculum guide for Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Class members create a timeline that includes world-historical events as well as events in the novel. They analyze the speaking styles of...

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the focus of three activities designed for readers of the autobiography.  First, class members deconstruct the title to understand Douglass's purpose in writing. Next, scholars...

Three activities are designed for readers of Jack London's The Call of the Wild. First, class members research and create posters that reflect the setting of the novel. Next, groups create posters with images that represent each chapter...

A curriculum guide for Jane Eyre focuses on Charlotte Bronte's portrayal of women. Readers engage in three activities that prepare them for an essay in which they argue whether the novel is a work of female rebellion or affirms...

Joseph Conrad's novellas The Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer are the focus of five lessons in this Curriculum Guide. Lessons are designed to advance analytical reading skills, examine Conrad's use of "The Double" theme, the...

A Tale of Two Cities is the core text for five lessons in a Curriculum Guide for Charles Dickens' famous novel. To begin, scholars examine Dickens' use of anaphora in the first line of the novel. Next, they compare the point of view in a...