William Golding's Lord of the Flies is the anchor text for a lesson that teaches readers how to distinguish between a literary topic and a literary theme. Using the provided worksheets, groups first chart some themes and propose a...

Complex, disturbing, and challenging, Beloved is the focus of a lesson that provides three activities to guide a close reading of Toni Morrison's novel. Readers create chapter titles based on key plot elements or themes,...

Call him a reliable narrator! Ishmael is the focus of a activity that asks readers to analyze the complex character of Herman Melville's narrator as he is introduced in the first chapter of Moby Dick.

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...

Ordinary and extraordinary readers will find much to contemplate in a lesson on Crime and Punishment as they examine the dichotomies in Dostoevsky's novel. Scholars reflect on Raskolnikov's theory that extraordinary individuals are not...

Dante Alighieri's "The Inferno" is the central text in a unit designed for high school seniors. Scholars compare the Christian concept of Hell to Dante's. In addition, they examine the tale as an example of epic poetry, as an allegory,...

Double, double scholars' appreciation of the Scottish Play with a guide that adds a rich brew of pre-reading background information, chapter discussion questions, activities, and writing prompts to provide readers with a "firm and good"...

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is filled with secrets. Help readers find the clues, solve the riddles and puzzles, and unwrap the mysteries with a six-page guide that includes before, during, and after reading discussion questions and...

The guide to John Steinbeck's The Pearl suggests ways instructors can help readers see below the surface of the novella to the parable beneath. Through a variety of activities, readers come to appreciate the complexity of the tale.

It's not the best of guides nor the worst of guides, but time spent examining the guide to Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities is certainly not wasted. The 17-page guide includes book-by-book synopses of the novel, before,...

"What is the theme of this story?" Now there's a question that can strike fear in the hearts of learners. Here's a lesson that uses photographs to introduce the concept of theme. Scholars examine six photographs and then attach a theme...

"How come there's no ending?" After a close reading of Frank R. Stockton's tale "The Lady, or the Tiger?" in which scholars examine each of the main characters' conflicts and motivations, writers craft their own ending using textual...

Two stories by Roald Dahl, "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "The Landlady" provide readers an opportunity to compare stories by the same author. After a close reading of the stories, teams select a character from one of the tales, craft...

Need a hero? Super! Groups create their modern-day marvel and craft a narrative with all the elements required in such a tale.

Introduce middle schoolers to Edward Bloor's novel Tangerine with a lesson that asks scholars to make predictions about events in the novel based on an article written by the Smoop Editorial team. Predictions are posted in the classroom...

Shirley Jackson's short story, "Charles," provides middle schoolers with an opportunity to practice their close reading skills. Using the provided list of prompts, scholars read and reread the story, then create a multimodal response to...

The second instructional activity in the Lord of the Flies unit asks scholars to consider the characteristics of a good leader. After generating a list of these qualities, they annotate a passage from the novel highlighting the...

What three readily available things would you grab in case of an emergency? That's the question that launches a unit study of William Golding's The Lord of the Flies. After sharing their choices, class members read Golding's rationale...

After watching a video about masks from many cultures, class members research the history of masks and build a Driving Question Board. Individuals then create a mask for a character from The Lord of the Flies, justifying elements of...

Frequently banned, often challenged, a mainstay of middle school curriculum, Tales from the Secret Annex, is the featured text in the seventh unit in the Teacher Guide Core Knowledge Program. The 134-page guide includes an...

To end the unit, groups use the Honeycomb Harvest strategy to show connections among a character, symbols, and themes in the novel and then create an Anchor Chart for the character that includes a symbol that best represents him. They...

The seventh lesson in the Lord of the Flies unit asks scholars to consider whether or not an individual can overcome the worst thing they have ever done. Groups read different articles related to the question, share their expertise in a...

Is the nature of humans inherently good or evil? That is the question scholars consider in the fourth lesson plan of the Lord of the Flies unit. In a Four Corners activity, they examine statements about human nature and stand by the...

Lead your readers into the fourth dimension as time travelers with a Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) Teacher Guide of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine. The 144-page guide includes a unit calendar, introduction, nine lessons, teacher...