What would Ben do? Jumping off from the pseudonymous letters Ben Franklin fooled his older brother into publishing when he was still a teenager, young literary lovers dive into acting, writing, and addressing a local issue with wit and...

After reading and describing the characters, setting, and plot in The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, class members write original Island Adventure narrative pieces including detailed descriptions of people, places, and things. Afterward,...

Sharing and cooperation are difficult skills for kindergartners to grasp. Using the story Stone Soup and a series of activities, kids learn about the benefits of working together, categorizing and comparing items, and eating...

Imagine waking up to find a giant bug staring back at you in the mirror! Think about the plight of Franz Kafka's Gregor in The Metamorphosis with a group discussion activity. Class members reflect on what it would be...

After responding to a series of prompts on an anticipation guide, readers of Unwind craft five predictions about what will happen in Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel.    

Examine the characters in Willa Cather's My Antonia with a group project. Small groups illustrate their chosen character on a large piece of paper and choose quotes from the text that tell about the character. Where students choose...

Both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have proud moments, but who is more prideful? Explore Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with a discussion web that compares both characters in a brainstorming graphic organizer. Each side provides...

Turn Pride and Prejudice into a math activity with a magic squares lesson. Kids read nine character traits and pair them to a list of the book's characters in order to complete the activity and find the magic number.

Have you ever wanted to tell a character what you really thought of him or her? Use a instructional activity based on Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter to encourage learners to write a letter in response to a character's...

An in-class reading of Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece Meets the Big O introduces class members to the journey motif that forms the basis of The Hobbit.

As part of their study of Out of the Dust, readers create a biopoem for one of the characters in Karen Hesse's 1998 Newbery Medal winning verse novel.

How does an author's choice of artistic medium influence an audience? What about how an author chooses to transform original source material? These are the questions class members grapple with as they compare scenes from episode IV...

How can a screenplay create meaning and drama in ways that other forms of writing cannot? That is the question class members must answer as they compare the cantina scene of the screenplay for George Lucas's Star Wars: A New Hope...

Class members take center stage as groups perform scenes from Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope. Actors are encouraged to add stage directions to the script, as well as create costumes and props to...

Class members compare the final 30 minutes of Lucas's Star Wars: A New Hope with Act V of Doescher's play, William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope and consider how the choice of media influences viewers' impression...

Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a...

As the instructor reads aloud several quotes from five chapters of the story Matilda, class members mime their interpretation of the scenes. Then, after reading "Miss Honey" and "The Trenchbull" (chapters seven and eight), the...

There is a reason why an Oscar is given each year for the Best Adaptation Screenplay. Adaptations are the focus of an exercise that asks class members to compare a work of literature with a least one adaptation of the work into a...

Four stories by Kate Chopin offer high schoolers an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the ways authors use various literary elements and movements to develop their themes and social commentaries. 

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...

Personal narratives are powerful things. Whether told from the first-person or third-person point of view, whether in the form of an essay, a short story, novel, or video, whether fiction or fact, they capture readers and give them...

An interactive provides readers with an opportunity to record their reactions to Beloved, Toni Morrison's powerful narrative based on the life of Margaret Garner. Prompts ask them to consider how the shifting point of view contributes to...

To conclude a unit study of Jason Reynold's Ghost, class members examine how Castle's feeling about his bedroom change over the course of the novel. Groups use the provided graphic organizer to identify the plot of the novel and then use...

What makes heroes and villains? A six-part unit plan asks young scholars to explore the concept of heroism and the characteristics they consider heroic and unheroic. Groups create character maps that focus on how characters are shaped by...