Have your class explore Buddhist Jataka Tales to compare and contrast them to European fables. After defining fables, Jataka tales, and the elements of each, learners identify themes and patterns for both types of narratives and the...

What was the true meaning behind WWII propaganda posters? Historians analyze images from the U.S., Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, sharing findings in small groups. A poster analysis worksheet and all posters are...

Dive into Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and determine what it means to conform in society, and discuss as a group with the thoughts and plans available in these documents. Included are multiple activities and brain targets that form the...

A useful scaffold to help your class with character analysis and text interpretation. Questions about characters from Sparrow Hawk Red by Ben Mikaelsen guide your young readers to describe a character literally, along with interpreting...

Teach your upper graders how to use an idea web to develop a topic for writing. After reading a variety of stories about friendship (a list of stories with the theme of friendship is included), model using an idea web. Class members...

Using ichat or Edmodo 4th -6th graders participate in an inter-school literature circle. Students from two different schools pair up online through ichat and use a blog to conduct a book circle. This lesson is wonderful; it fully...

Middle schoolers read a novel and discuss character personality. First, they analyze a character in a novel and keep a chart or web of the character's identity, which includes specific examples from the book. They then write a script...

How do modern adaptations of Shakespearean plays relate to their original source material? Middle and high schoolers focus on Shakespeare's play Othello and its screen adaptation "O" to explore how modern film adaptations of Shakespeare...

Young literary analysts compare two poems by the same author. Readers look for slant rhyme, observe the beat and rhythm of each, and search for repeated vowel sounds. After re-reading, they observe the lack of punctuation and the stanza...

Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is a thing with feathers” is the focus of a series of activities that model for learners how close reading can lead to understanding. The whole class plays with the metaphor, groups talk about the author’s...

Take poetry off the page and put it into terms of movement, physical space and, finally, music with this series of three lessons from the Smithsonian Institution. This resource introduces students to two poetic forms that originated as...

Distinguish between primary and secondary source documents using the theme of philanthropy. Middle schoolers discuss Anne Frank: The Diary of Young Girl as a way to study the past using a primary source. Then they investigate how to...

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a great story to share with your class, and this lesson focuses on just that story! The eighth in a fourteen-lesson series on short stories, the plan has learners study some vocabulary, read the...

Class members review expectations for successful discussions before reading chapter one of A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They engage in a think-pair-share to discuss the gist of the text and add their thoughts to their Readers'...

Students recognize ways Shakespeare creates and uses mood augment their analysis of the text and help them in making performance choices. They, in groups, select words, phrases, lines, that reveal their character's mood.

Students analyze recurring themes. In this recurring themes lesson, students discuss the theme of a text using Dr. Seuss texts. Students complete a finding a recurring theme worksheet and use the worksheet of Nanavi and Neeraj to...

Students listen to popular music of the 50's and 60's to make literature connections to The Outsiders. For this popular culture lesson, students evaluate and analyze various songs and connect them with the themes in the literature...

Learners analyze sculpture, poetry, and music to gain an understanding of historical events. In this critical thinking skills lesson, students take a closer look at African-American history as they examine "Lift Every Voice and Sing'"...

Using a reading passage, this lesson leads learners through an exploration of a text. This activity focuses on identifying what the reading passage is about, its tone, and key elements.

An 11-page teacher's guide that focuses on Delia Owens' bestseller Where the Crawdads Sing is packed with discussion questions and activities. Text-dependent questions, activities, and writing prompts are also included....

A visual literary lesson provides learners with OPTIC (Observations, Predictions, Themes, Inferences, Conclusions), a reading strategy to help them understand and interpret visual and written texts. Scholars practice the strategy with a...

Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" serves as the anchor text in a five-part instructional activity that takes the mystery out of poetry analysis by modeling explicit strategies for pupils to employ to conduct a close reading of...

The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...

Eliminate the hard work of creating an entire literature unit with this reading guide for the novel Sarah, Plain and Tall. From background information about the author and her motivation for writing the story to...