If you are beginning Laurence Yep's Dragonwings, this will provide activities for the first five chapters. The objectives include making connections to oneself and the world, organizing information and events, vocabulary acquisition,...

Students closely read " To Build a Fire," to explore the use of narrative point of view and debate the distinction between knowledge and instinct. The elements of literary naturalism and how they relate to Jack London's work is examined...

Use the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin to teach your third grade class about descriptive writing. Following a teacher read-aloud of the story, the class brainstorms a list of adjectives describing the main character. Students use this list...

Enhance and extend instruction of "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin with one or all of these ideas. You might want to cover characterization and summary, or improve understanding of context clues and irony. You can cover any...

Making inferences and drawing conclusions is a key component to successful active reading. Encourage your class to use context clues and prior knowledge to infer different elements of a story, including the setting, plot, and character...

What are some of life's most tried-and-true lessons? Pupils listen to examples from the book Live and Learn and Pass It On by H. Jackson Brown, Jr. They write down their own life lessons to later compile in a class booklet. As...

After reading Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street, class members craft an essay in which they use evidence from a variety of vignettes to demonstrate how Cisneros develops Esperanza's character.

Do most people resemble Titania, the fairy queen; Puck, the mischief-maker; or someone else? Pupils take a fun quiz to find out which character they are most like from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. They also explore a...

What tools did Shakespeare use to develop his characters in the play Hamlet? With the resource, pupils engage in a discussion about how the character Claudius introduces and develops Hamlet. They explain how word choices in Claudius's...

How does the comparison of Hamlet to Fortinbras develop Hamlet's character? Scholars complete a Quick Write to answer the question. They also continue their exploration of Shakespeare's Hamlet, reading and discussing Act 4.4.

How do Ophelia's interactions with Hamlet help develop her character? Pupils continue reading Act 3.1 from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Using writing and discussion, scholars analyze the dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia, paying particular...

Get ready for the big reveal! Scholars work in the final instructional activity of the unit to discuss the revelation in Browning's poem My Last Duchess. Pupils discuss homework in pairs before working in small groups to identify text...

What impact does word choice have on character development? Using the resource, scholars read Act 3.1 from Shakespeare's Hamlet, focusing on the development of Ophelia's character. They also complete a Quick Write to analyze the meaning...

Who is Ha? Scholars look closely at the poem Papaya Tree and carefully examine the character Ha. Learners work in groups to create an anchor chart defining Ha's character. They also answer text-dependent questions to help with...

It is all in the details. Scholars read The Life of Miné Okubo and pay special attention to details that reveal Okubo's character. Completing their Understanding Miné: Character Traits graphic organizers and recalling the descriptions...

How does an author develop and contrast character points of view in a work of literature? Using a graphic organizer, readers continue gathering evidence about character point of view from Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water. Next,...

Build your classroom community with an activity that uses apples to examine oneself and their classmates. Participants draw four large apples on blank paper then exchange them within a small group. Group members write a character trait...

A 10-lesson unit takes high schoolers through a novel study of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. To start, students learn about Fitzgerald's background and gain historical context that prepares them for a reading of the book. The...

Have you ever wanted to tell a character what you really thought of him or her? Use a lesson based on Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter to encourage learners to write a letter in response to a character's actions. 

Can utopia be achieved? Included here are three literature worksheets to pair with Lois Lowry's The Giver. Pupils work in groups to come up with solutions to society's issues, individuals back up a statement related to a topic in the...

You'll be a star at your next grade level meeting with an educational unit on Louis Sachar's Holes. Based on both the novel and film, the lessons include applications to language arts with character studies and movie reviews; social...

As you work through a literary analysis unit based on Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," use a writing assessment to measure your class's skills. They choose one epigraph from the story to analyze and track...

Address annotation, word choice, and tone in the same language arts instructional activity. Ninth graders read a section of Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" and track character development based on supporting...

The second module in a series for high school seniors focuses on tracking the central idea of a text across genres and from multiple author and character perspectives. Twelfth graders read a speech by Benazir Bhutto entitled "Ideas Live...