Kate Chopin's short story, "The Story of an Hour" and John H. Young's "Our Deportment, or the Manners, Conduct, and Dress of Refined Society" offer high school juniors an opportunity to compare the role of women in the 19th century with...

Good questions can help focus readers' attention on the elements writers use to add depth to their stories. The questions on this worksheet do just that and encourage readers to think critically about a story and author's purpose.

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...

Discovering the main idea in fiction is like uncovering buried treasure; one must persevere to locate it, and the reward is priceless. Scholars delve deep into leveled stories using three questions to aid in identifying the main idea. 

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.

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," from The Jungle Book, offers young readers a chance to examine how Rudyard Kipling uses setting and personification to bring to life the brave mongoose who battles cobras to protect his family. Class members...

How can something be true even if it didn't happen? Invite your classes to investigate the truths found in the world of magical realism as they analyze short stories, poems, informational texts, video, and art from this genre.

To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine...

Stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Ambrose Bierce provide readers with an opportunity to investigate unreliable narrators. The lesson plan begins with an activity about different types of point of view and continues as scholars apply their...

Napoleon Bonaparte once said, "What is history but a fable agreed upon?" A series of lessons encourages learners to look beyond the basic fable agreed upon related to events in history and consider multiple accounts of the event....

If you really want to know, this is a terrific lesson all about narratives, which is just a fancy way of saying telling stories. And you get to do it without being phony or anything. My favorite part is that you get to read a passage...

"The Masque of the Red Death" provides readers with an opportunity to research and plan a presentation about a topic related to Edgar Allen Poe's classic short story. 

Discover the life of Abraham Lincoln with help from the story Abe Lincoln Remembers by Ann Turner. After listening carefully, scholars reflect on what they deem as Lincoln's most influential life event and how it relates...

Learning how to craft a cogent argument based on a solid claim, supported with evidence and solid reasoning, is an important life skill. Teach middle schoolers about argumentative writing with a lesson asking them to analyze the claims,...

What was it like to enlist as a soldier in the Civil War? By using enlistment papers, young scholars consider this question. After they've looked at the primary source and discussed it, they create a short story of a fictional soldier to...

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...

Finding the central idea in a text is equally important in fiction and nonfiction. Work on analyzing a piece of writing for the central idea with Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," complete with supporting...

In his 2013 introduction to Fahrenheit 451, Neil Gaiman states, “Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” In this extraordinary unit plan, readers "explore the power of written language to educate and...

Use Nathanial Hawthorne's immortal text on the influence of religion on the early American settlements, as well as its continued impact on American culture, with a unit that focuses on The Scarlet Letter. In addition to Hawthorne's...

There's nothing like the Wild Wild West! Scholars investigate the American Frontier through the eyes of Kit Carson. To complete the first installment of a three-part series, they use presentations, a short video, and primary and...

Concept muraling helps learners improve their comprehension of a text by giving them a way to organize their understanding of the key concepts in that text. Introduce readers to this process with a carefully scaffolded lesson that models...

Many American writers in the late nineteenth century wanted their writing to reflect real life. Individuals watch and discuss a video, read and explore author biographies, write a journal entry and a poem, and complete a multimedia...

Julius Caesar need not be Greek to kids. The background information and suggestions for teachers, as well as the activities for learners, make this curriculum guide a must-have for your Shakespeare curriculum library.

This, the sixth in a series of 10 related resources, examines the life and works of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, an African American author, born in 1825, who advocated literacy for both free and enslaved African Americans.