Scholars read excerpts from the story, Heidi, in a three-part assessment that focuses on comparing and contrasting characters. Each part contains three tasks that challenge learners to discuss, answer comprehension...

Young composers demonstrate their understanding of the stylistic features of descriptive music, including pitch, tempo, dynamics, rhythm, and timbre, by developing a melody and countermelody for a main character in a story. As part of...

The tide will turn in your earth science or oceanography unit when viewers see this clip. They learn that tides are caused by the gravitational pull of our moon, and are even impacted by the gravity of the sun. High, low, neap, and...

Rhyme, rhythm, free verse, imagery: Do these words describe poetry, or jazz music? The answer is both! A resource explores these similarities as scholars watch a video, engage in discussion, read author biographies, write poetry and...

To conclude a study of A Raisin in the Sun and to prepare for a visit to the Lewis Museum, class members analyze Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem." Learners then draw connections to characters in the play and to their own experiences...

Is it possible to regain trust? Scholars put much thought into the subject of trust after reading Shakespeare's Macbeth. Readers work together to analyze how the character relationships develop the a message about trust. They then...

Pain and suffering do not have to be inevitable in a study of Crime and Punishment. A carefully scaffolded lesson plan introduces readers to the divided natures of the characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's complex novel. Groups use...

What do words say about a person? Scholars closely examine the words Robert Browning uses to describe the Duchess in My Last Duchess. They work in groups to answer guided questions about how words help develop the Duchess as a character....

Soldier's lives are often a topic when studying the Civil War, but what about the lives of civilians? Scholars use the characters from the novel Bull Run to better understand the lives of those not directly on the Civil War battlefields....

What is a dynamic character? Using an interesting resource, scholars set out to answer the question. They create graphic organizers to collect details about character development as they read the novel Inside Out & Back Again. They...

Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution becomes the text for an online newspaper activity. Young journalists craft news, features, obituary, and opinion articles based on the characters and events in the play.

Theodore Taylor's The Cay provides the text for an assignment that asks each reader to craft a biopoem for one of the characters.

Fifty eye-catching pages contain six lessons about Roald Dahl's novel, Matilda. Each lesson has a theme and covers a different subject—literacy, social-emotional learning, science, and geography. Scholars analyze characters, examine...

A 55-page unit examines the novel, The BFG, by Roald Dahl. Six lessons pay close attention to friendship, dreams, and believing themes while analyzing interesting characters, writing creative vocabulary, smilies, metaphors, an exciting...

Every book has a few great characters, but James and the Giant Peach is the only one whose characters travel in a piece of fruit. The class creates T-charts for the main characters of the novel, while reading the book. They write actions...

Middle schoolers describe the characters of Walk Two Moons as they write biopoems. Following the pattern provided, young writers depict their chosen characters' traits and experiences to make their poems unique.

As part of their study of Out of the Dust, readers create a biopoem for one of the characters in Karen Hesse's 1998 Newbery Medal winning verse novel.

Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a...

The final lesson of a three-part series on Kate Chopin's The Awakening has scholars investigate life as a woman in late nineteenth-century America. They research the role of women in society through the eyes of the characters in the...

Explore the concepts of community and point of view with these activities complementing the children's book Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. Following a class reading of the story, ask students to either draw a map of the...

To gain a better understanding of characters in Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, kids create a biopoem for one of her characters.

Who Am I? Scholars go online to gather clues and evidence to uncover just who was involved in the American Civil War. They use hands-on Internet activities to come to an understanding of the roles soldiers and civilians played in the...

To conclude a study of the 4 C's (cause, course, consequences, and characters) of the Civil War, young historians examine personal letters that reveal the effects of the war on those at home.

"Amazing things happen" in Avi's City of Orphans, and the suggestions in this teacher's resource will guide readers through through the many stories of the different characters living in the tenements of 1893 New York.