Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" provides middle schoolers with an opportunity to hone their close reading and literary analysis skills. After annotating their copy of the story, writer's craft an essay in which they analyze...

In this learning module, students will practice analyzing indirect characterizations. A worksheet is provided to reinforce the concept. This module is designed to support Tier I, Tier II, and Tier III students.

During this unit, students will ask "Why do we do what we do?" They will read different novels to analyze character motivation. Throughout the unit they will debate whether they think characters made smart choices and why. They will also...