High school readers examine George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant" for examples of symbolism, metaphor, connotation, and irony. They analyze how these literary tools convey the writer's main point and contribute to the persuasive...

Read like a writer. Scholars read a model literary analysis in preparation for a similar writing assignment before annotating each paragraph for the gist. Next, pupils devise a list of qualities of a strong literary analysis essay. 

One activity, two essays, and one central theme: qualities of an argument essay. Here, scholars first describe the qualities of an argument essay regarding Bud's rules to live by from the novel Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis....

Pupils prepare to write argumentative essays based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. They begin weighing evidence and crafting claims for their writing about control.

Invisible Man is a core text in high school literature classes and one of the most cited works on the AP Literature and Composition exam. Instructors new to using Ralph Ellison's novel and those who have long included it as part of...

Readers of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings are asked to craft an essay in which they compare how Maya Angelou uses figurative language to depict herself and Mrs. Flowers. 

Use a handy concept analysis guide as you begin your unit on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. With character descriptions, literary themes, and anticipated affective issues, the guide can help those new to using The Tempest craft...

Begin your unit on Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with an anticipation guide about literary themes. Class members read six statements about time, rules, and mortality, and note they believe each statement is...

Begin your unit on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea with an anticipation guide. As kids read 12 statements that relate to the novel's themes, they decide whether each is true or false in their own opinion.

Revenge, mortality, madness—what are the central ideas from Shakespeare's Hamlet? Scholars answer the question by writing multi-paragraph responses. They also identify and discuss literary devices from the play.

"Eneke the bird says since men have learnt to shoot without missing, he has learnt to fly without perching." As part of their study of Things Fall Apart, class members read Paul Hernadi and Francis Steen's essay, "The Tropical Landscapes...

A thorough unit on literary analysis and character development culminates in a final writing assessment. Prompted to compare the parent-child relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, high...

After reading Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street, class members craft an essay in which they use evidence from a variety of vignettes to demonstrate how Cisneros develops Esperanza's character.

As a mid-unit assessment, class members demonstrate their understanding of the concepts covered so far by crafting a formal, multi-paragraph essay in which they analyze how Rainer Maria Rilke's word choices develop the meaning and tone...

Learners analyze American essayists Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass in an introduction to American literary non-fiction writing. In this essay history lesson, students identify methods for writing essays. Learners read and analyze...

Does that happen in real life? Scholars look at their Themes of Adversity graphic organizers and think of examples in today's world for each type of adversity. They determine if today's world has the same struggles as those in the...

Students read the book THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London and discuss the different elements in the book. They then write an essay on a theme providing examples backing up their main point of their essay.

Can three works of literature work together to establish and develop a common central idea? Put your thoughts into writing with a final assessment focused on a unit-long analysis of Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His...

Rid yourself of unsupported analytic writing forever with a mid-unit assessment focused on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." As ninth graders formulate an essay based on evidence from the first seven lessons in the unit, they...

Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac has enjoyed popularity since its debut in 1897 due in large part to the themes it addresses. Instructors planning on using the play with their classes will find much to like in this teaching guide. The...

How does the theme of gender inequality develop in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and Shakespeare's Hamlet? Pupils craft a multi-paragraph response to analyze the relationship between the texts. They use evidence from both works to...

A shirt can't really swallow you—right? Readers find examples of symbolism and personification in S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders with two straightforward lessons.

How affected is Thinks Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe's personal biography? Using a four corners strategy, and evidence from their readings, class members debate the degree of biographical influence in Achebe's novel.

Students analyze the archetypal hero called the monomyth. In this archetypes lesson, students discuss the topic and view a chart of hero figures with related details. Students analyze the monomyth process diagram, read the story of the...