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...

In this comprehension exercise, readers compare Carl Sandburg's "Chicago" to a description of the city from Upton's Sinclair's The Jungle.

Encourage readers to determine if Hamlet's madness is actually divinest sense. Class members analyze the words of the play before studying related texts, including T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," scenes from...

The AP Literature and Composition exam is all about close reading. Test takers are presented with a passage and asked to analyze how an author uses literary devices to create a desired effect. Prepare your students for the exam with a...

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is the most frequently cited novel for the Advanced Placement Literature and Composition Open Response Question. Those new to using the book and and veterans as well will find the teaching strategies, the...

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is difficult to read and difficult to teach. The novel is so highly regarded that it is one of most often listed as an option for the AP Literature and Composition exam. The materials in this packet from PBS...

Who says comic strips aren’t educational? Prove these naysayers wrong by asking your class members to create a comic strip for a selected vocabulary word. Using online technological tools that provide access to an array of options for...

The SAT. The ACT. AP exams. The very mention of these exams can cause the college bound to feel anxious. One way to combat Test Anxiety is to provide high schoolers with models of these tests and give them opportunities to analyze...

Like Scrooge, your language arts learners will not shut out the lessons you teach in a vocabulary activity based on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Included in the packet is a variety of vocabulary activities and two...

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...

Literary theories are lenses through which a text may be analyzed. The question in this lesson plan is how a particular literary lens can influence the reader's view of the text.

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...

Avoid the horror of readers straining to recall details of Joseph Conrad's complex Heart of Darkness. Instead provide scholars with a frame for their note taking. As they read, class members record evidence to support their responses to...

Today's kids are probably not familiar with the conventions of letter writing, due to the boom of technology. Here is a lesson that will provide opportunities for formal and informal letter writing.