Curated OER
Exploring Animals in Literature
Celebrate Be Kind to Animals Week while teaching empathy and allegory with creature-related texts
Yale University
What Lies Beneath: A Strategy for Introducing Literary Symbolism
“It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.” You’re never too old for Dr. Seuss and using The Sneetches and The Lorax is a great way to introduce readers to allegories, parables, and literary symbolism. The lessons...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Animal Farm: Allegory and the Art of Persuasion
Introduce your class members to allegory and propaganda with a series of activities designed to accompany a study of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Readers examine the text as an allegory, consider the parallels to collective farms and the...
Curated OER
English Literature - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Everything you wanted to know about the history of English literature and language but were afraid to ask. From Beowulf to Canterbury Tales, the Knights of the Round Table to Robin Hood, Addison, Fielding, Shakespeare, Swift, and many...
Curated OER
Teaching the Holocaust through Literature
Centered on the short story "The Tenth Man" by Polish Holocaust survivor Ida Fink, here is a solid one-day resource to support study of World War II or Nazi history, short stories, or to complement any ELA unit on The Diary of Anne Frank...
Curated OER
Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Young Goodman Brown"
Give your class some background information on both Nathaniel Hawthorne and his short story "Young Goodman Brown." Basic themes and characters are introduced, especially as this is an allegory with many symbolic elements. Help your...
Livaudais-Baker English Classroom
Lord of the Flies
Packed with activities, projects, and assessments, first-time instructors and seasoned veterans will find much to like in this overview of a nine-part unit based on William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies.
Literacy Design Collaborative
Using Textual Evidence to Analyze Literary Responses to Historical Events
Scholars analyze Animal Farm to learn how to add textual evidence into essays to support their ideas. They search for a deeper meaning to the story and how it relates to the text Totalitarianism and Revolutions in Russia. To finish,...
Curated OER
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz Quiz
Can you imagine an entire mountain consisting of a solid diamond? It is possible, though a bit farfetched in The Diamond as Big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story is meant to be a satire about wealth and greed; the quiz asks...
Annenberg Foundation
Gothic Undercurrents
Terror, mystery, excitement. American writers of the 19th century, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson, used these elements to create morally ambiguous tales that challenged the prevailing belief in...
Curated OER
Allegory and Dr Seuss
Tenth graders read Dr. Seuss books to discover what allegory is. They investigate how Dr. Seuss studenT books are allegories of events in the real world and create timeline
Curated OER
World Literature: The Inferno Essay
In this literature analysis worksheet, studnets read Dante's Inferno and write an introduction with a thesis statement. Students give a synopsis of the comedy and then write an essay. Students select from the five options to complete the...
Curated OER
Extreme Poetry Vocabulary
Challenge your class with this comprehensive list of literary vocabulary words. Learners take a pre-test, look up definitions, come up with an example, and then take a post-test. You might use this prior to a unit about poetic devices in...
Curated OER
The Hobbit
Students list W.H Auden's six characteristics of a quest story. They say what is meant by a "metaphorical quest." Pupils discuss some differences between symbolism and allegory. Students indicate how Bilbo Baggins's adventures changed...
Bermudian Springs School District
John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath — Independent Reading
Lies, deceit, betrayal, criminality: these topics are just a few of the reasons that John Steinbeck's classic novel The Grapes of Wrath has captivated people since its 1939 publication. Scholars begin the lesson by reading background...
Curated OER
A P Literary Terms
Is a list of literary terms found frequently on AP English exams of value to test takers? Now there's a rhetorical question. Here's a list that provides definitions for everything from allegory to vernacular. To say the list is of value...
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to the Signet Classics Edition of William Shakespeare's Richard III
Villainy, parricide, ambition, abuse of power, and some of the most famous lines in English literature—Richard III has it all. Instructors using the play for the first time and those who list it as one of their favorites will find the...
Curated OER
Exploring Allegory - John Bunyan
Students explore allegory through reading Pilgrim's Progress. In this literature lesson, students review the characteristics of allegory. Students write an essay explaining the characteristics of allegory and why Pilgrim's Progress is...
Curated OER
The Plague by Albert Camus
In this literature worksheet, high schoolers respond to 14 short answer and essay questions about Camus's The Plague. Students may also link to an online interactive quiz on the selection at the bottom of the page.
Curated OER
Idylls of the King - Essay Questions
In this literature worksheet, students respond to 12 short answer and essay questions about Idylls of the King. Students may also link to an online interactive quiz on the novel at the bottom of the page.
Curated OER
Hard Times - Essay Questions
In this literature worksheet, students respond to 20 short answer and essay questions about Dickens's Hard Times. Students may also link to an online interactive quiz on the novel at the bottom of the page.
Curated OER
The Plague by Albert Camus
In this online interactive reading comprehension worksheet, learners respond to 15 multiple choice questions about Albert Camus's The Plague. Students may submit their answers to be scored.
Curated OER
Bring Your Character in a Bag - Animal Farm (Middle, Literature)
Ninth graders interpret a chosen character from the novel Animal Farm and represent that character in original symbolic form and present orally to the class.
Curated OER
Encounter with a Skull (Tae dokuro, 1890)
Learners read and analyze a short story by Koda Rohan. They conduct research, read and discuss a biography of the author, identify examples of Japanese and Buddhist symbolism in the story, and write an original story.