How do you represent a tragic event? Are stories of tragic events better left untold? After reading chapter two of Maus and studying other representations of the Holocaust (suggestions are included), class members create a representation...

Study the vocabulary from Carl Hiaasen's Hoot with an activity featuring synonyms and antonyms. Kids fill in a graphic organizer for each word, prompting critical thinking as they find additional ways to put the word into context.

Bully, bullied, or bystander? Paul Langan's The Bully is the anchor text in a unit that examines bullying and violence. After a close reading of the text, readers imagine themselves as the characters and consider how they would react in...

Aspiring artists and budding writers combine their skills in an interactive lesson. Young scholars become authors when they create their own picture books focused on social justice. The resource guides learners through the writing and...

Is The Iliad part of your curriculum? Check out a resource that offers something for those new to teaching the classic and those with lots of experience using Homer's epic. Plot summaries, discussion questions, activities abound in...

Close up your study of Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science with a letter-writing assignment. Pupils prepare by journaling and sharing with a partner. They then compose letters that focus on a big idea from the...

The works of Jacqueline Woodson introduce readers to diverse characters and themes. A guide covers many of the author's best-known books such as Brown Girl Dreaming and Locomotion. Dive & Discuss and Explore & Extend activities...

Beowulf, the Old English epic hero, comes alive again in the activities found in a teacher's guide designed to accompany a reading of the classic poem.

Every culture has its own stories to tell. An interesting educator's guide shares a large collection of fairytales and folktales, some from different cultures and some re-creations of classics. A summary and brief teaching ideas...

“There is no story that is not true, . . .” And uncovering the truths in Things Fall Apart is the focus of a 68-page resource packet designed to provide instructors with a wealth of materials that enhance understanding of Chinua Achebe’s...

Eliminate the hard work of creating an entire literature unit with this reading guide for the novel Sarah, Plain and Tall. From background information about the author and her motivation for writing the story to...

Take an in-depth look into the vocabulary from the novel, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. With a list of words to choose from, scholars discover the definition, origin, stories associated with...

Your plane has crashed in the Sahara desert. What do you do? Explore the possibilities with a role-playing activity based on Antoine de Saint Éxupery's The Little Prince. In groups, kids decide whether they would walk to find help...

Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is one of the most prominent and influential books to come out of the existential movement. Host a group discussion in which learners list different characteristics of existent art, group...

As an introduction to Sharon Creexh's Walk Two Moons, a volunteer dons a pair of boots and walks about the classroom.Observers then ponder the axiom, Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his...

Create a graphic autobiography integrating images and text. Working within the structure of the programs Comic Life and Photoshop, pupils integrate the Principles of Design. They focus on balance, rhythm, proportion, and text structure....

Do people really need “a newer, bigger Holocaust” in order to change? Or is it possible that by making text-to-self connections to the stories of others people that they can change? In order to connect to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, class...

Students read a short novel while filling in a graphic organizer for problem and solution.  In this sociology lesson, students use a prior knowledge and relate the text to theirselves and to think about their own...

This review of a novel project is a great way to ensure accountability for independent reading. The assignment sheet, templates, samples, and rubrics are all part of the packet materials.

The death of a parent can turn a child's world upside down. A curriculum guide for The Secret Hum of a Daisy explores defining moments in the main character's life, including the loss of her mother. Chapter-by-chapter discussion...

Napoleon Bonaparte once said, "What is history but a fable agreed upon?" A series of lessons encourages learners to look beyond the basic fable agreed upon related to events in history and consider multiple accounts of the event....

Jane Eyre offers scholars an opportunity to practice reading comprehension skills. Pairs are assigned a word from the text, use their prior knowledge, and consider the context, connotation, and denotation of the word to posit a...

Body paragraphs are the building blocks of every essay. Pupils view and discuss a model essay using a rubric to evaluate one of its supporting paragraphs. Next, scholars use what they've learned to continue drafting their own literary...

How do people solve problems in healthy ways? Writers explore a topic of interest in their multi-genre writing assignment exploring Zach's Lie. The final resource in a series of seven includes multiple scaffolds and organizers for...