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...

Personal narratives are powerful things. Whether told from the first-person or third-person point of view, whether in the form of an essay, a short story, novel, or video, whether fiction or fact, they capture readers and give them...

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...

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....

A reading of Patrick Henry's "Speech in the Virginia Convention," Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" launch a discussion about the price one is willing to pay to...

How does Hamlet's state of mind change over the course of Shakespeare's most famous revenge tragedy? After a close reading of Hamlet's soliloquies in Act III, scene 1 and Act IV, scene iv, class members engage in a Paideia/Socratic...

Complete personal pronoun practice activities. Pupils use correct personal pronoun form in sentences the teacher writes on the board. They review the function of a pronoun and the various cases and practice placing personal pronouns by...

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.

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...

Ah, the dreaded college application essay. Here's a unique approach to crafting a powerful personal essay. Class members read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Leslie Marmon Silko's Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit, analyze the...

Good discussion questions, quizzes, and tests teach as well as assess. Readers of The Great Gatsby will learn much from the materials in a 36-page packet designed to help students prepare for the AP Literature exam. Included in the...

Use the Peace Corps to explore a different place and different perspectives. Your class reads the personal narrative "Cross-Cultural Dialogue" by Roz Wollmering, completing an attached story frame sheet in preparation for a class...

Chapter 12 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X discusses Haley's narrative techniques, mainly how he uses point of view and foreshadowing to build interest and suspense. Class members read and annotate chapter 13 of the text as homework...

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...

To practice pre-writing techniques your class will re-read the book George vs. George and complete a T-chart along with brainstorming ideas on how to organize their essay.

A four corners pre-reading activity introduces class members to the major themes in Victor Martinez's award winning novel, Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida.

Students identify controversial topics on which they have strong opinions and model their own persuasive opinion pieces after the featured article. They compose persuasive essays on controversial issues that "hit home" for them.

What are the effects of competition in an academic environment? The competition between the main characters in A Separate Peace motivates a series of activities that asks readers to take a stance on competition, and then to develop a...

What is it that makes people keep going when they face challenges in life? Ask your class to consider this question in relation to their own experiences and as they read material from The New York Times. Using personal experiences...

As an end-of-unit assessment, class members complete the final drafts of their Common Application narrative essay and then meet in pairs to discuss the independent reading selection.

This is a fantastic resource designed for learners to envision what it was like for the three million African-Americans who migrated to urban industrial centers of the northern United States between 1910 and 1940. After reading a...

Are you one of the 100 million Americans whose ancestors passed through the doors of Ellis Island? Learn about the historic entry point for immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with an informative reading passage. After...

Archaeologists have discovered a cache of Native American relics. They want to preserve these relics by removing them from the rapidly eroding site to a lab where they can be studied. Native American traditions demand that the items...

After a brief discussion of their independent reading texts, pairs exchange their college narratives and, using the provided peer review tool, give their partner suggestions on how the draft may be improved.