Tell City Schools
The Cay
Support your instruction of The Cay by Theodore Taylor with this extensive unit of materials. Provided here are prereading activities, worksheets and discussion questions for the entire book, and reading quizzes that you can use to check...
Indiana University
Literature of Asia and the Middle East: "A Sound of Hammering" by Dazai Osamu
Dazai Osamu’s short story, “A Sound of Hammering” is the focus of a three-day investigation of modern Japanese literature and life in post-World War II Japan. The events in Osamu’s story mirror those in his own life, and give a...
Curated OER
Forming Open-Ended Questions
Help readers learn to create their own open-ended questions for any text you are working with. Using Bloom's Taxonomy, learners begin on the lower levels and work their way up to form questions that focus on synthesis instead of simple...
Penguin Books
An Educator's Guide to Jan Brett
Prepare to teach Jan Brett stories by taking a look at this teacher resource, which includes text-based questions, writing assignments, discussion ideas, and vocabulary practice for 18 different stories.
Washoe County School District
Three Skeleton Key
Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...
Curated OER
With Detective Fiction in the Urban Classroom
This abstract for an instructional unit using three-minute mysteries, stories by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, and Edgar Allan Poe includes a short history of detective fiction, sample plans, and suggestions for exercises and activities...
PBS
Analyzing Stop and Frisk Through Personal Stories and Infographics
How much can you learn about an important topic from a single image? High schoolers analyze an infographic that represents the number of stops performed during the Stop and Frisk police procedure. After building background information...
Novelinks
The House on Mango Street: Question Answer Relationships Strategy
Good readers question text as they read. The Question Answer Relationships Strategy (QAR) used in this resource with The House on Mango Street, provides readers with a concrete approach for questioning Sandra Cisneros' text and...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The Hobbit
From dragons to dwarves, from riddles to rings, the great adventure story of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien has captivated generations of readers of all ages. An educator's guide explores the novel's literary elements, including the...
Great Books Foundation
The Fox and the Stork
Young readers take part in a meaningful discussion following a reading of Aesop's fable "The Fox and the Stork." Five questions focus on the characters' actions and offering apologies.
New Hampshire Bureau of Adult Education
Dystopian Literature: from Fiction to Fact
Imagine an entire course devoted to dystopian literature. If that concept appeals to you, check out this course that uses 1984 as the anchor text and includes classic short stories as well.
West Jefferson High School
The Novel — Honor
For classes tackling To Kill a Mockingbird, this lesson plan sets readers up for discussions or essay writing with questions and prompts. The prompts encourage individuals to explore beyond the novel itself, looking at photographs from...
Simon & Schuster
Curriculum Guide to: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The activities in a curriculum guide to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein provide readers with an opportunity to explore various concepts in depth. First, groups research controversial scientists, examine their work, and decide whether or not,...
Common Sense Media
The Masque of the Red Death
Poe goes high tech with a lesson that asks high schoolers to use the internet and various apps as they read and analyze "The Masque of the Red Death." In addition to responding to comprehension questions in Quizlet, they use Minecraft to...
Art Institute of Chicago
Lesson Plan: A Writer’s Odyssey
Looking for a fresh approach to an end-of-unit project for The Odyssey? Check out a resource that has class members write their own hero's journey short story and then craft an illustration that depicts their tale. Apollonio di...
Curated OER
Story Elements
Sixth graders use several pieces of literature to identify specific story elements. In this story elements lesson, 6th graders analyze the story element of character, character traits, and setting for the example stories. Students work...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Understanding Theme
The ninth in a fourteen-lesson series, this plan marks a sort of midpoint in a unit devoted to the study of short stories. Pupils learn about theme and work on their short story projects by adding to their blogs, checking in with the...
Recorded Books
Teacher's Guide: The Pinballs
Dive your class into the novel The Pinballs by Betsy Byars with the support of this reading guide. Including short answer questions, a multiple choice comprehension quiz, and extension activities, a variety of materials are provided for...
Art Institute of Chicago
African Myths and Stories
Young historians discover African stories associated with a royal altar tusk from the Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria, read myths illustrated on the tusk, and write a story about the life of an oba using figures depicted on the tusk.
PBS
Finding Story Ideas
Pitch your best news story to your news team, or the peers in your journalism class, with a lesson about finding, reporting, and presenting a story. After watching clips of different examples, as well as strategies for finding the best...
Teaching Tolerance
Participating in Digital Communities
It's possible to promote inclusion and empathy on the Internet—it just takes effort! Scholars read and discuss a short story about being a friend online. Then, pupils role-play appropriate ways to respond to hate within a digital...
Curated OER
"Their Eyes Were Watching God": Folk Speech and Figurative Language
Using or considering using Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God? Then this packet is a must for your curriculum library. The examination of how Hurston combines folklore and folk language to create the voice of her...
Curated OER
Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path" in Graphical Representation
Students analyze graphical forms of Eudora Welty and interpret the shorts stories in the representations. In this graphical representations lesson, students analyze the short story genre in comic strips. Students then create their own...
Curated OER
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Students complete a review of the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" in preparation for an exam. Working in groups, they participate in a review game of Jeopard. The game serves to review the terms and themes related to...