The memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, is the focus of a unit designed for fourth graders. Scholars begin each lesson with a warm-up, then listen to a read-aloud of a section of the book. Pupils complete word work,...

Who are we and what shapes our identities? Seventh graders work to answer this question as they learn how to write a memoir. Full of non-print resources and supplemental texts that range from fiction to non-fiction, scholars write their...

Introduce middle schoolers to playwriting and the elements of drama with a six-session storytelling unit that encourages kids to expand their acting and writing skills. The 12-page packet includes overviews of the lessons,...

Lois Lowry's The Giver is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking works of literature in the middle school curriculum. Round out your novel unit with a collection of reading activities, comprehension questions, memoir and...

Writing is a process, and lesson planning is, too! A personal narrative unit stresses the writing process to pupils, who first examine various stories and poems as a model of autobiographical writing and then write their own stories....

To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine...

What were the driving forces behind American expansion in the nineteenth century, and what were its effects? Scholars watch a video, read biographies, engage in discussion, write journals and poetry, draw, and create a multimedia...

Discover how writers express identity in their writing. Learners explore how issues of identity surface in the literature of minority writers. Scholars watch a video, read and discuss biographies, conduct research, engage in creative...

What motivated Europeans to explore the New World, and what effects did their exploration have on Native American populations? The second installment of a 16-part American Passages series prompts pupils to watch a video and read several...

This is an introduction to a unit on survival literature; it focuses on the memoir Night by Elie Weisel, hie story of survival of The Holocaust.

This lesson is an introduction to contemporary nonfiction including the definition, types of nonfiction: biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, essays, speeches, and diaries, examples of authors and types, key terms, essential questions,...

In this learning module, students will engage in a deep study of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Worksheets, that assess reading comprehension and inferencing skills, and map projects are provided to reinforce Fredick...

This site is a collaborative work-in-progress involving a team of four scholars based in the US, Ireland and the UK. It consists of ten learning units on topics revolving around the emancipation of slaves in the American South following...

This is an online study guide/notes for the memoir Farewell To Manzanar by Jeanne and James D. Houston including author information, literary elements, chapter-by-chapter summaries/notes, study questions, and analysis. The memoir...