This unit focuses on the students selecting a play to read and study from an extensive list provided. A link to key drama terms is provided. Student read and respond to their selected text, learn the vocabulary, and take a quiz.

A great resource for students reading "To Kill a Mockingbird," complete with pre-reading material (author biography, introductory article, novel background, and vocabulary words), as well as brainstorming activities and thought-provoking...

The textbook entitled Teaching Literature to Adolescents, 2nd Edition contains activities for Chapter 2 reflection. Intended for teachers, this site contains activities that will extend the content from the Chapter 2. Young adult...

A review of "The Keeping Quilt" by Patricia Polacco, a story about a Russian immigrant mother and family as well as other resources for teaching young readers.

Students' opinions are a crucial step in the foundation of good writing. After reading 'I will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato', students will state their own opinion about a topic through writing.

Complete study guide for "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens. Prepare for the novel with an author biography, vocabulary preview, introductory article, and pre-reading questions and activities. While reading, participate in...

Great reading guide for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare. Provides pre-reading material, including an author bio, play introduction, vocabulary lists, and journaling activities, as well as charting and brainstorming...

This lesson focuses on The Great Gatsby and its portrayal of the disintegration of the American Dream. It features a student response question asking students to consider their own American Dream and a link to a Great Gatsby Treasure...

What are the signs found in the novel "The Sign of the Beaver," by Elizabeth George Speare? Use informative site to learn more about this exciting novel.

This Daily Teaching Tools resource provides a series of graphic organizers. Middle schoolers will be able to plan the writing of summaries, paragraphs, and literary responses.

The highly-respected Reading Rockets program offers both teachers and students a toolkit of ways to connect more actively with the materials they read. Some of these techniques are specifically for fiction-reading, others are designed...

This lesson focuses on reader-response literary criticism including the purpose of reader response, the structure of a reader-response essay, how to criticize with examples, and an example of a reader-response essay using "The Secret...

The textbook entitled Teaching Literature to Adolescents, 2nd Edition contains activities for Chapter 5 reflection. Intended for high school teachers, this site contains activities that will extend the content from the Chapter 5. Focus...

Check out this informative site about "A Long Way From Chicago" by Richard Peck and learn about small-town life during the Depression in seven short stories for the years 1929 through 1942.

This reading guide for "A Long Way From Chicago and a Year Down Yonder" by Richard Peck takes a comprehensive look at the author and his work, seven stories about small-town life during the Depression.

This lesson discusses Sylvia Plath's works including The Bell Jar. It has students look at biographic information and commentaries about Plath. As students read the novel, they complete response logs and write essays. They debate topics...

Explore the role of pollinators in their ecosystems, develop a written response to one of three questions about the importance of honeybees, gather evidence about Coal Country BeeWorks' efforts to reclaim surface mining sites,.

In this 3rd through 5th grade lesson, young scholars read the book Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse and write responses as Tovah to three of Rifka's letters in their journal.

Complete study guide to V. S. Naipaul's "A House for Mr. Biswas," providing pre-reading material, brainstorming activities, and thought-provoking discussion and writing prompts on plot, character, and theme. Students who have completed...

A series of resources designed to teach students how to write a literary analysis. The first is a screencast [6 mins] that focuses on defining and introducing the parts of a literary analysis. The second is a slide show with seven slides...

Chris Power introduces "An Inspector Calls" as a morality play that denounces the hypocrisy and callousness of capitalism and argues that a just society can only be achieved if all individuals feel a sense of social responsibility.

This lesson plan involves creating and maintaining an online scrapbook in a reader-response format. Included in the lesson plan is an overview, practice, objectives, resources, preparation, and more.

Contains plans for four lessons that ask students to create new book covers as an alternative to the traditional book report. In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to sites used in the lessons as...

Great study guide for students reading Madeleine L'Engle's book, "A Wrinkle in Time." Check out an author biography, introductory material and questions, reading activities, and personal response questions. Also included are discussion...