Tired of those blank stares after your class reads a particularly complex passage from a Shakespearean play? Help high schoolers untangle that prose with a literature circle activity. Ten different roles prompt class members to focus on...

"X" is for exaggeration, and "F" is for fact. To encourage close reading and to improve literary analysis skills, class members annotate fables and tall tales, like Paul Bunyan, with symbols that identify key features of this genre.

Class members identify bullying in contemporary texts and role play how they might change those scenes to examples of anti-bullying. They then re-define their initial definitions of bullying and discuss what they...

A good prompt is hard to find, especially ones that encourage application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of a text. Help is here in the form of a prompt list for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four that offers essay topics that...

High schoolers read literature and view other media to discover how print and non-print texts answer the thematic question: Who am I? students compare the ways ideas are presented, and create their own portfolios or personal Web pages...

Fifth graders examine how to respond to literature. In this literature response lesson plan, 5th graders discuss how to respond to literature. They write a response in a literature log each night based on their reading and the...

Middle schoolers discover the wealth of literature written by individuals not born in the United States. They discover the literature of individuals of multiple ethnicities born in the United States. Students compile a list of books they...

Although this lesson plan covers the rather obscure topic of the Japanese "I-novel", it also includes a great deal of historical information and material for an in-depth discussion of universal literary concepts. Specifically, young...

Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic...

Explore the concept of make believe stories. In this genres of literature lesson, students discover the difference between realistic fiction and fantasy. They are asked questions during and after the reading of a book to ensure the...

Compare and contrast folktales, myths, and fables in an interactive eBook. The interactive is broken up into three topics: myths, fables, and folktales. Each section includes a reading passage and a guided lesson on the theme, topic, and...

Useful for literary analysis, citing textual evidence, or summary skills, this lesson about the Kumeyaay Indians would be a good addition to your language arts class. Middle schoolers read novels and summarize the literature in their own...

Accompany a viewing of Disney's live-action feature film, The Jungle Book, with a packet equipped with several activities focused on story elements. Scholars discuss and complete diagrams and charts about the movie's characters, setting,...

How do novels differ from plays? Explore with your class the text features of fiction and drama by reading The Hidden One: Native American Legend and then performing a reader’s theater script based on the story. Class members create a...

In this grammar worksheet, students match twelve movie genres with their appropriate definitions and examples from two answer banks and then translate the titles into Chinese. Students answer six questions regarding personal movie...

Students identify the elements of science fiction literature. They write and illustrate a science fiction story using real and exaggerated science. In addition, they read their stories aloud in small groups.

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

Centered on the short story "The Tenth Man" by Polish Holocaust survivor Ida Fink, here is a solid one-day resource to support study of World War II or Nazi history, short stories, or to complement any ELA unit on The Diary of Anne Frank...

Fifth grade reader/writers create an alternate ending to an episode in Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach in which our protagonist "loses" the chance to magically solve all his problems. Prompts students not only to write creatively...

Students examine three different versions of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and complete a comparison activity. Their own version of the poem is created and illustrated in this lesson.

Use the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin to teach your third grade class about descriptive writing. Following a teacher read-aloud of the story, the class brainstorms a list of adjectives describing the main character. Students use this list...

How do poets convey emotion and represent their views of life? Pupils learn more about Whitman and Dickinson through the unit and analyze their bold reinvention of craft and style for poets to come. Looking at classic pieces such as...

How can something be true even if it didn't happen? Invite your classes to investigate the truths found in the world of magical realism as they analyze short stories, poems, informational texts, video, and art from this genre.