Amelia Earhart's accomplishments and strength of character extend beyond her status as one of the first female aviators in America. Elementary and middle schoolers learn about Earhart's early life and the historical context surrounding...

Sometimes, the best solution to a problem can be found by walking in someone else's shoes. Here, scholars use character cards to take on the roles of people around the world. They determine how their character's...

How does climate change affect you? First in a three-part series, the activity focuses on how individuals living around the world are affected by climate change. Individuals take on the role of a given character and share their...

Why do characters do what they do? Scholars use the resource to explore character motivation in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. Additionally, they discover pictures, interviews, and videos from the Deutsche Bank production of the play. 

Seventh graders create an original narrative story in a diary or journal format involving a fictional character with conflict, plot, resolution and falling action within the story line. They follow the steps of the writing process with...

Stella Louella’s Runaway Book launches a study of point of view and storytelling. After reading the tale, class members retell the story from the point of view of another character. The scripted plan, developed by a teacher candidate,...

Do your young authors suffer from writer's block when they try to write short stories? Access their natural creativity with C-Gor, the writing monster! The instructional activity takes aspiring authors through a new writing process...

Each group is assigned a character to play in a mock debate. They read the provided materials, build an argument, and then debate their points of view as their perspective character. The debate focuses on ensuring equality for...

“Anyone who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.” Mary Alice, the fifteen-year-old narrator of A Year Down Yonder, is forced to leave Chicago and spend a year with her Grandma Dowdel in a small rural...

Class members create literary mandalas for two characters from Maus, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about his father’s experiences with the Holocaust. After finding quotes that reveal three good traits and three bad traits of each...

Rays and angles and Star Wars? It sounds strange, but it's actually a fun game to help fourth graders get good at measuring and identifying angles and rays with a protractor. Each pair of children chooses which Star Wars character they'd...

Address the literary elements in a piece of writing using these materials. The packet includes plenty of resources, and focuses mainly on theme, character, and point of view, with some materials for setting, symbolism, and author's...

What's the difference between a clown and a cashier? Use context clues to infer what each character does for a living in five different reading passages. Kids mark their choices on the space provided.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs provides the lens class members use to analyze and evaluate the motivations of the characters in Sylvia Plath's "Initiation" and scenes from Mean Girls. Readers then select a character from A...

As teachers, we have a lot of patience. Our scholars, on the other hand, may need some support. Give your pupils the emotional intelligence instruction they desire with a lesson designed to teach patience through grand conversation,...

Emanuel Leutze's painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. Alexander Gardner's photograph of Abraham Lincoln. What do these works of art tell us about the character of these American Presidents? After examining the techniques the...

Clothes might not make the man but they certainly do help an actor create a character. How costume designers employ the same elements of design found in sets (line, color, texture, shape) to realize a character is the focus of a lesson...

Ninth graders examine how literature connects to real-life and see how irony aids in the development of theme. They read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, and discuss elements of foreshadowing and situational irony. Then learners will write...

Develop historical analysis and interpretation with your older students. They will study and analyze three given interpretations of Christopher Columbus' life, which includes significant events, his character, and the impact he made on...

Use picture cues as a tool in order to create meaning along with text. With a wordless comic, young illustrators discuss the main idea and character traits, and independently write a summary for a page of a wordless comic. This strategy...

Eighth graders explore the characteristics of responsibility. In this character lesson, 8th graders complete a self-evaluation. Students view a responsibility video. Students write a newspaper article on selected environmental issue.

Learners focus on plot and sequence as they read the story Sheila Rae, The Brave by Kevin Henkes. The entire class will follow along with the teacher as she reads and models her thinking about the plot of the story. When instruction...

Teaching tools designed to support student-centered literature study. Geared toward homeschoolers reading Harper Lee's book To Kill a Mockingbird, I would use these in my classroom. The materials are applicable to any text: graphic...