Help young historians personally engage in the stories of African Americans during the Great Migration! Assessing a migration route map, learners create a migrant character's experience, adding details while studying primary sources. A...

Do not allow your pupils to ignore the connections among the characters in Katherine Paterson’s Newbery Medal winning novel, Jacob Have I Loved. Instead, provide them a semantic feature analysis chart that asks them to note things Louise...

Students investigate major characters of history that are represented in children's literature. They conduct research using a variety of resources and each character is put into a class book as a presentation. The character includes a...

Here is a instructional activity designed for middle schoolers which helps them recognize stereotypes one way or another against a particular group of people. They also determine what may have motivated the author to use a stereotype in...

Help young readers align character relationships in an activity for Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter. After kids discuss the characters and how they relate to each other, they use index cards and a graphic organizer to outline the...

What makes a novel a novel? Class members select a favorite novel, record their impressions on a worksheet, and then come together in groups to discuss the elements common to narrative writing. Next, they identify the characters, the...

Readers match the name of a female character from a Shakespearean play to the correct play that woman is in. Strong, mostly central female characters are covered.

Can your class figure out who said what just by looking at a quotation? This activity for Of Mice and Men includes 11 quotations from the novel. Use this quote sheet as a light activity to get your readers to look back into the text or...

Students read about Viking exploration and complete activities based on the Indigenous people they encountered. In this Viking exploration lesson plan, students compare and contrast stories, write a character sketch, and more.

This detailed overview of a curriculum unit suggests using travel literature to engage and stimulate your third graders’ interest in reading. The suggested reading list includes fiction and non-fiction materials and offers urban children...

Pain and suffering do not have to be inevitable in a study of Crime and Punishment. A carefully scaffolded lesson introduces readers to the divided natures of the characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's complex novel. Groups use the...

Elementary and middle schoolers research animal facts and use them in a fable. First, they pair-share to find animal traits to use in writing a fable. They then complete a prewriting worksheet. After going through the writing process,...

Great Expectations can prove to be a challenge for instructors who choose to use Dickens's novel as required reading. Here's a curriculum guide that includes lessons that address some of these challenges. The first lesson in critical...

Archetypes help readers connect literature to the world around them. A lesson plan uses elements of pop culture to teach about archetypal traits of common characters  and discuss issues of perception and other literary devices. At...

Have you ever felt like you are pulled into two directions? Some authors depict this feeling in their characters. Scholars choose a play or novel in which a character is pulled or influenced by two different directions and write essays...

While reading the book Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls, the class ties together the core reading objectives, which are making predictions, comprehending new information, reading for author's purpose, independence in reading,...

Boost comprehension with an excellent reading guide for chapter 3 Of Mice and Men. Learners define four vocabulary words, note one allusion, define five literary terms, and respond to 31 short answer questions regarding the...

Negative effects of bullying come to light through listening to the book Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. Class members identify philanthropic acts portrayed in the story and make illustrations to connect them to their own...

First the class analyzes the painting, Rodeo-Pickup Man by Frank Mechau, then they get to work. They explore the painting through verbal descriptions, focusing on vivid language to describe detail. They then compose a written piece using...

Soldier's lives are often a topic when studying the Civil War, but what about the lives of civilians? Scholars use the characters from the novel Bull Run to better understand the lives of those not directly on the Civil War battlefields....

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...

Support your scholars with these anticipatory questions to go along with The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The objective, rationale, and teacher instructions are clearly explained, followed by an anticipation guide for pages 81-93 and the...

Show this presentation to your learners at the beginning of the school year and they'll know just what to do when they are having a hard time making good decisions. This resource asks students to remember to use their own personal...

Address the ways Piggy and Simon try to prevent the other boys from becoming savages in William Golding's Lord of the Flies with an informative slideshow presentation. The slides portray an in-depth comparison of the...