Khaled Hosseini’s video “Using Real People and Events” motivates learners to reflect on their own experiences and to use those experiences as the basis of a graphic novel that expresses a universal truth. The richly detailed plan...

The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, dedicated to providing humanitarian assistance for the people of Afghanistan, provides a series of exercises designed to be used with a reading of the graphic novel version of Hosseini’s The Kite Runner....

Pass the tea! Using the resource, scholars participate in a Tea Party protocol to analyze text and images about inventions that helped meet societal demands. After sharing their observations with each other, they discuss visual elements...

Paul Langan's novel The Bully is the core text in a six-session unit plan that engages high schoolers in an in-depth examination of bullying and its effects on bullies, victims, and bystanders. The richly textured and carefully...

Here's a great game that will help your class review a book or unit before an exam. Three students act as judges while two teams take turns responding to your knowledge, interpretation, and judgement questions. Complete directions for...

Introduce your class to literary analysis with a series of activities that has them examine book and movie reviews. Groups then draft their own review of a text, select a digital medium, and craft a presentation.

Brian Jacques’ novel Redwall provides the focus for a series of lessons involving the analysis of folklore. Adopting the persona of a character, groups write letters in the voice of their character, assemble a collage using Microsoft...

Play a classroom version of the classic game show Jeopardy, to review and discuss the novel your class has been reading. Questions about plot and other story elements are written on cards and given point values. Divide the class into...

How are novels and scripts alike and different? As part of the mid-unit assessment, scholars complete a Venn diagram to compare two types of writing: a novel and a script. Next, they respond to short-answer questions, evaluating passages...

Jamie Ford’s historical novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, explores the relationship between a young Chinese American boy and a Japanese American girl set against the backdrop of Seattle during World War II. The teaching...

After reading Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, class members view the 1975 film version and then craft a critical review in which they compare the two versions and evaluate the success or failure of Milos Foreman's...

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...

What is a graphic novel? How does it differ from a traditional novel? These questions launch a discussion of Fabio Celoni and Mirka Andolfo's graphic novel adaptation of The Kite Runner. Through a series of literature circle discussions,...

The End of the Line, Angela Cerrito's gripping novel about an adolescent murderer incarcerated in an unusual "school," is the subject of a comprehensive set of support materials. Chapter vocabulary and discussion questions are excerpted...

Encourage readers of Nightjohn, Gary Paulsen's young adult novel about slavery set shortly before the Civil War, to develop their categorization and organizational skills with a strategy that asks them to list all the words they can...

Middle or high school volcanologists watch the 1997 film, Dante's Peak. They make observations as they watch and then write a movie review, focusing on what was accurately represented. They also point out what facts were stretched by...

Students complete a character study using a database to compile information from a novel. They design a five slide presentation highlighting the character's reaction to different situations in the book. They write an acrostic poem using...

A lot of secrecy shrouded the creation of the atomic bomb. Readers uncover some of that secrecy using an educator's guide for the novel The Green Glass Sea. Three weeks of lesson plans feature discussion questions and reading...

Jack the Ripper terrorized London in the late 1800s. An educator's guide for the novel The Name of the Star places the historical figure in a modern context. Readers complete a pre-reading activity before answering a series of discussion...

Would you rather be right, or would you rather be kind? A novel unit based on R.J. Palacio's Wonder focuses on the need to be kind to others and to accept their differences. As learners read the book, they discuss the themes of...

Seventh graders participate in literature circles as they read African novels. They read, work on word studies, and complete comprehension activities. They share their reading with other literature circle groups in the class.

Students describe the plot of the latest Harry Potter novel and comment on the highlights and weak points. They then evaluate the novel and understand the layout of a book review.

It's time for your scholars to become book reviewers! Start with a fun review of foods: are they good or gross? Learners apply these evaluation techniques to books, recording their thoughts on large pieces of butcher paper. Simply have...

Get to know more about the characters of the novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis by comparing and contrasting their character traits using a Venn diagram.