The English Language Arts Examination handout contains a variety of multiple-choice questions to assess reading comprehension, in addition to a source-based argument essay and text-analysis response prompts.

Having two subjects seems like it makes a sentence more complicated, but it's as easy as adding an extra conjunction! Connect subjects with eight sentences that are each missing an important and.

Though December 7th, 1941 was a day "which would live in infamy," World War II had provided many infamous days, events, battles, and atrocities in the years before. So why were American forces so surprised when Japan attacked Pearl...

What did Jo write her stories with? How did the March sisters dress? A primary source set designed for Louisa May Alcott's Little Women prompts learners to look over images of household items and clothes from the 1860s before...

S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders is still relatable to teenagers today, even though it was written more than 50 years ago. Explore how the figurative language of the story works to establish characterization, and how foreshadowing lays...

Mythic heroes, gods and goddesses, and epic tales come alive as young artists craft their own graphic novel or mind map for classic epics, including The Odyssey, Beowulf, Harry Potter, and Star Wars, identifying the...

A strong community acts as a family during difficult times. The evidence for the family aspects of Maycomb is abundant in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and it is the focus of a lesson on the importance of setting as it relates...

You have the power! Scholars learn that they have power of the pen in their writing. After reading and viewing various sources about standardized testing, they express their own opinions about the testing by writing letters to the...

Believe it or not, people have rights as new consumers. Scholars read PEN America's News Consumers' Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and work in small groups to paraphrase chosen sections of the text. Next, they create and present...

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...

Winogradsky columns are ideal for observing the role of bacteria and other microorganisms in an ecosystem. This student activity guide is complete with data tables for observations and analysis questions for processing what was observed....

A story about feral girls raised by werewolves will have some interesting character development! Track how the girls and their teachers act, speak, and change with a lesson focused on Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by...

You can often track a character's development based on others' reactions to their words or actions. Using Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," ninth graders work in a jigsaw activity to analyze how Mirabella's...

Word choice can drastically alter the tone of a piece of writing. Ninth graders read Karen Russell's short story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" and use textual evidence to help them analyze how word choice affects their...

Wrap up your literary analysis unit with a discussion activity as tenth graders prepare for an end-of-unit assessment. After they have read and annotated Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His Love," Sir Walter Raleigh's...

Can authors speak to each other across works, genres, and centuries? Study the conversation between Christopher Marlowe in his poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and the responses by Sir Walter Raleigh and William Carlos Williams...

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is an illustrative source of rich prose, deep character development, and strong literary themes. Use two of the book's key chapters, which focus on Waverly's relationship with chess and with her mother, to...

Even the most rigid expectations come from a place of deeply held values. In a key chapter of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, explore the ways that Jing-Mei's mother's parental expectations affect her relationship with Jing-Mei. Tenth...

Where does a writer find inspiration? "Go into yourself," says Rainer Maria Rilke in "Letter One" from Letters to a Young Poet. Readers of Rilke's letter to Franz Xaver Kappus examine the words and figurative language Rilke uses to...

Class members continue their reading of Ethan Canin's "The Palace Thief," focusing on how the relationship between the narrator and Sedgewick changes after the narrator meets Sedgewick's father.

Readers of "The Palace Thief" continue examining Ethan Canin’s short story and consider how the narrator's actions develop the central idea of how one's expectations and the expectations of others influence behavior.

Readers of "The Palace Thief" focus on how the author's descriptions and word choices reveal the characters of the narrator, Sedgewick, and the senator.

Is identity unchanging? Do events in our childhood forever influence our character? Groups ponder these questions as they examine Ethan Canin’s short story “The Palace Thief.”

As the class concludes its close reading of “The Palace Thief,” groups consider how the narrator's character has changed throughout Ethan Canin’s short story.