The Dubliners contains 15 short stories all bound in one book. The stories begin with narration by young children, and as they progress, so do the ages of the narrators. The author, James Joyce, focuses most stories on characters that...

Everyone takes a different journey through grief. A series of lesson plans for the novel Counting by 7s introduces readers to the main character who loses her parents in a car crash. Discussion questions and writing prompts combine...

Fairy tales seem like quick, fun children's stories, but asking compelling questions about characters, plot elements, and literary themes can transform them into rich and complex tales. Use a series of eight lessons on Hans Christian...

Ever felt stuck in the middle? Some characters do. Scholars choose a novel or play and write essays describing how a character is stuck between cultures. Writers also analyze the techniques used in a passage from We Were the Mulvaneys...

Readers examine the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio to determine how characters respond differently to situations and events. Readers annotate and analyze the text and carry out group discussion using accountable talk. They work in small...

What do words say about a person? Scholars closely examine the words Robert Browning uses to describe the Duchess in My Last Duchess. They work in groups to answer guided questions about how words help develop the Duchess as a character....

Rest in peace, Ophelia! Scholars read about Ophelia's burial in Act 5.1 of Shakespeare's Hamlet. They complete a Quick Write to analyze the characters' reactions to Ophelia's death.

What is a dynamic character? Using an interesting resource, scholars set out to answer the question. They create graphic organizers to collect details about character development as they read the novel Inside Out & Back Again. They...

As part of their study of A Midsummer Night's Dream, class members meet in a drama circle to discuss and role-play scenes from the play. They then engage in an activity called World Cafe, analyzing the characters' actions from the text....

Readers engage in discussion with partners to answer questions about A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. Next, they complete exit tickets, writing about how the author creates different points of view for her characters.

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...

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,...

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...

Focus on characterization in Wilson Rawls' well-known novel. First, learners answer a series of questions about the chosen chapters, paying attention to plot, use of language, and character interactions. Then, using the provided Venn...

Bring the world of video messaging into your classroom with this creative communication application. Offering the ability to create animations with customized characters, backgrounds, and recorded messages, this resource is guaranteed to...

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson is a fun book about making friends - and now your class can reenact the story with finger puppets! Have them cut out the characters on the worksheet, and attach cardstock or construction paper to make...

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

Help learners on the autism spectrum build awareness of their feelings of anxiety through a hands-on learning activity. Using a set of cards with examples of the different types of anxiety someone might face, learners discuss ideas...

The characters in Lois Lowry's The Giver are rich and complex as they weave their way through the plot. Examine the character traits of one chosen person with a biopoem, which enables learners to follow a poetic format in writing a...

Students participate in a drama character building activity. They view and discuss a video segment, discuss the differences between the two girls in the video, and compare the two characters by saying the same phrases while pretending to...

Third graders identify super human powers and their uses found in comic and cartoon characters, identify use of visual elements such as line, shape, and color, and create drawings of an original super character with at least two extra...

Students discover the characters in the Flatmates series. For this character analysis lesson plan, students make guesses about the various characters based on their appearance, then read a brief passage about the characters to see if...

Young scholars explore the book A Midsummer Night's Dream. In this literature lesson plan, students identify main characters and vocabulary words from the text. Young scholars participate in a book discussion group.

Third graders read the story "Sam and the Lucky Money". Individually, they identify new key terms from the story. In groups, they examine the setting and discuss how it relates to the plots and characters. To end the lesson, they read...