Augment your unit on Carl Hiaasen's Hoot with a series of activities about the environment, civil disobedience, making an impact in the world, and growing up. A list of literary concepts and themes helps you to write your lessons to...

Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club brings together the central ideas of identity, ambition, expectations, and relationships. As high schoolers read an excerpt from the chapter "Two Kinds," they note how Jing-Mei's connection to music relates to...

Listen to the low, stifled sound that arises from the souls of your ninth graders when overcharged with awe. Inspire them with a captivating instructional activity about "The Tell-Tale Heart." Learners analyze how Poe uses the story...

America's success depends on everyone. Scholars examine the first two paragraphs of Booker T. Washington’s "Atlanta Compromise" speech. They work in groups to answer questions and discuss Washington's perspective on African Americans'...

Scholars meet in a drama circle to discuss what they remember from reading A Midsummer Night's Dream Act III, Scene 1 in the last activity. They then take turns reading the scene aloud, stopping to answer questions as they read. Learners...

Scholars take another look at Japan's Fourteen-Part Message. They then take turns adding ideas to sentence starters to create ideas about the different perspectives of government. To finish, groups mix and mingle to share their sentences...

Part one of a mid-unit assessment relating to The Omnivore’s Dilemma includes listening to and analyzing a speech by Birke Baehr. Part two involves analyzing an excerpt from the text. The assessment ends with short response questions.

Readers consider comparisons between the Dinka and Nuer tribes in South Sudan, making connections between an informational article about Sudanese tribes and the novel A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They annotate the text to help...

Class members prepare to write a two-voice poem that compares and contrasts two characters from Linda Sue Park's novel, A Long Walk to Water. Pupils also complete the mid-unit assessment, answering questions about juxtaposition from...

Even without captions, photographs can tell amazing, involved, and complex stories. Viewers analyze two photos, consider what the pictures reveal about the subjects' identity, and determine the social justice issues represented in the...

Four lessons make up a poetry unit that introduces high schoolers to spoken and written poetry. Class members also examine poems as social commentary and connect these poems to various novels and plays. A great way to incorporate poetry...

People deal with grief in different ways. The series of Abigail Adams' letters in this instructional activity reveals how she dealt with losing her mother, father, and community members. The included worksheet helps young scholars...

In "How We Researched and Wrote this Book," the final essay in Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, authors Aronson and Budhos discuss their research methods and purpose in writing the text....

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.

People should always choose their words carefully. Scholars examine the words used by Martin Luther King, Jr. in paragraphs 10 and 11 of his "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Readers answer questions about word use, think about synonyms,...

How can a gender theoretical lens shape the way Ophelia is perceived in Hamlet? That is the question writers must answer in an explanatory essay to conclude their study of Shakespeare's revenge tragedy.

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....

Scholars learn about primary sources with a Primary Sources: Japanese-American Internment during World War II packet. Pupils work with a partner to read challenging sources in the packet while making notes in the margins. They then...

Conflicts arise when underlying needs are unmet. An engaging video introduces viewers to nine basic human needs. Then, through a series of videos, worksheets, and activities, class members learn that by focusing on interests and needs,...

How does culture shape perspective? Pupils consider the question as they read an excerpt from Laurence Yep's autobiography, The Lost Garden. Using a graphic organizer, they gather textual evidence and make inferences about the author's...

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man tops the reading list for the AP Literature exam. A five-page guide offers instructors and book clubs discussion questions designed to get readers to think deeply and critically about the inspection of...

Introduce middle schoolers to Edward Bloor's novel Tangerine with a lesson plan that asks scholars to make predictions about events in the novel based on an article written by the Smoop Editorial team. Predictions are posted in the...

Erin Entrada Kelly's award-winning novel, Hello, Universe is the anchor text in this 236-page teacher guide. The guide includes introductions to the Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) program and the unit, a unit...

Students examine a variety of maps and documents to identify physical and cultural features of neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries, to explain the historical migration of people, expansion and disintegration of empires, and the...