Eight lessons and worksheets comprise a curriculum guide for Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Class members create a timeline that includes world-historical events as well as events in the novel. They analyze the speaking styles of...

An 18-page curriculum guide for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice consists of five lessons. The first plan asks readers to compare the manners, social behaviors, and class issues in Austen's novel to today's. Next, pupils examine a...

A 20-page curriculum guide for Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince includes five lessons and related worksheets. For background, class members research and create travel brochures for Florence, Italy, in 1500. Next, they analyze...

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the focus of three activities designed for readers of the autobiography.  First, class members deconstruct the title to understand Douglass's purpose in writing. Next, scholars...

An 11-page packet includes three activities to engage pupils in reading Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth. To understand the historical context, class members research a list of topics related to Chinese history and culture. They then...

A curriculum guide for Jane Eyre focuses on Charlotte Bronte's portrayal of women. Readers engage in three activities that prepare them for an essay in which they argue whether the novel is a work of female rebellion or affirms...

Assess readers' comprehension of William Golding's Lord of the Flies with an exam that includes matching, true/false, and multiple-choice questions.

Readers learn how to use both direct and indirect characterization clues provided by Charles Dickens to understand the complexity of Ebenezer Scrooge's character. Scholars collect evidence of comments Scrooge hears, how he responds to...

A activity on magical realism has young historians research how Garcia Marquez weaves historical events and his own experiences into One Hundred Years of Solitude. Using historical records and information found in a biography of Garcia...

Double, double scholars' appreciation of the Scottish Play with a guide that adds a rich brew of pre-reading background information, chapter discussion questions, activities, and writing prompts to provide readers with a "firm and good"...

With the help of this teacher's guide, it won't take 12 nights for scholars to complete their study of William Shakespeare's romantic comedy about twins Viola and Sebastian. Pompous prigs, he shes, fatuous fools, and lovelorn lovers...

A 24-page teacher's guide to Romeo and Juliet includes scene-by-scene plot summaries, focus, discussion questions, and suggestions for individual and group projects.

A study of The Taming of the Shrew proves to be problematic in contemporary classrooms. Is Shakespeare following Elizabethan conventions or being ironic? What are readers supposed to make of all the hunting imagery? Of Katherine's...

A boy is playing a girl disguised as a boy playing a girl. Welcome to William Shakespeare's comedy As You Like It. "And thereby hangs a tale."

Trying to get a hold on the author's intent in Measure for Measure can be a problem—no wonder the drama is considered one of Shakespeare's "problem" plays. This guide provides instructors with information about why the play is...

With all due respect to Beatrice, Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing speaks with both mirth and matter. With the help of this guide, readers will fall in love with the "skirmish of wit" between Beatrice and Benedick, the hysterical...

Was Antony "transformed/Into a strumpet's fool," as Philo declares? (I, i) Was Cleopatra "green in judgment"? (I,5) A guide to Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare's tragedy, provides instructors with a framework for teaching the play about...

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...

"Three Stones Back," a passage from Matt de la Pena's best-seller, Ball Don't Lie, allows readers to practice their close reading skills as they compare the passage to an information text about wealth inequality. 

It's not the best of guides nor the worst of guides, but time spent examining the guide to Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities is certainly not wasted. The 17-page guide includes book-by-book synopses of the novel, before,...

Which came first—the painting or the poem? In this case, it is the painting. Scholars closely examine a work of art and then craft an ekphrastic poem in response. A carefully scaffolded nine-page plan leads young poets through the process.

Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" is a bit of a puzzle. Critics have long debated Montresor's motives for killing Fortunato. Young scholars examine examples of the three types of irony (verbal, dramatic, and...

A headless horseman? Really? A reading of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" launches a study of how to use the A-CLAP strategy to determine a story's credibility. Writers employ these techniques to craft their ghost stories and make them...

After reading Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," class members compare the characteristics of Ichabod Crane and Brom Van Brunt. Next, they read an article about ghosts that supposedly haunt the campus of Oklahoma...