The released 2003 AP® exam asks scholars to read and respond to two poems about the love god Eros. They also analyze the characterization and narrative in The Other Paris. A final essay question requires pupils to choose a novel or play...

Everyone comes from somewhere. An interdisciplinary lesson on Elvira Woodruff's The Orphan of Ellis Island includes discussion starter and writing prompts for the novel, as well as a graphic organizer to help learners begin their...

Author, filmmaker, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston was also a dialectologist. The dialogue of the characters in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God reveals her fascination with accents and dialects. A short video from the Great...

A Socratic seminar wraps-up a study of Zora Neale Hurston' Their Eyes were Watching God. Using the text and their notes, scholars focus on how characters in the novel accept or reject the societal norms of the times.

Words matter. Words frame thought. Words are symbolic. Readers of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale examine how the words In Gilead's "New Language" reinforce the power of the government and provided insight into the symbolic level...

Any classroom study of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved requires careful planning and scaffolding. A primary source set that includes a video, illustrations, photos of artifacts, and a broadside of the Fugitive...

Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their eyes Were Watching God has been highly praised and severely criticized for its depiction of African American folk culture. A set of primary source materials, including photographs, articles, essays, and...

Coldhearted snob or warm and caring? A series of activities prepares scholars to evaluate the main character in Jane Austen's Emma. To begin, class members compare the gender expectations for women in Regency England and those of today....

Readers take part in three activities after reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. To understand the importance of diction, class members analyze Stevenson's characters' language to denote their social status. After...

Spoiler Alert! An 18-slide presentation includes information about author William Golding, his experiences reflected in Lord of the Flies, a summary of the story, the political and religious allegorical levels of the novel, and the themes.

Five lessons make up a curriculum guide to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Readers find examples of Twain's use of irony, closely examine Huck's colloquial language, as well as his sense of morality, and identify themes in the novel....

An interactive activity asks scholars to match the title of an Ernest Hemingway novel with one of seven photographs. 

Moby Dick is more than a whale of a tale narrated by Ishmael. A lesson studying Herman Melville's classic novel asks readers to examine the different genres the author weaves into his story. Instructors model how to conduct a stylistic...

Pain and suffering do not have to be inevitable in a study of Crime and Punishment. A carefully scaffolded lesson introduces readers to the divided natures of the characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's complex novel. Groups use the...

How does Gabriel Garcia Marquez make the magical elements of his novel appear so real? That's the challenge facing readers of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Scholars examine the tone and descriptive details Garcia Marquez uses to...

Anthony Doerr's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See is the focus of a toolkit that provides readers with a summary of the plot, background information about the author, and discussion topics. 

Sibling rivalry! Revenge! Ill-fated love! Wuthering Heights has it all! Lead readers through a study of this massive, poignant tale with the help of a 22-page teacher's guide. The guide includes a list of characters and their family...

Is the nature of humans inherently good or evil? That is the question scholars consider in the fourth lesson of the Lord of the Flies unit. In a Four Corners activity, they examine statements about human nature and stand by the poster...

To conclude a study of The Great Gatsby, class members create a multimodal project that represents what they feel the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg see about the hidden side of one of the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic...

While wisdom may not be communicated, knowledge of sentence structures certainly can. Teach young grammarians the power of syntax with a lesson that uses Herman Hesse's Siddhartha as a mentor text. Learners first rewrite captions for an...

The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...

Just as Bud, from the novel Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, had rules to live by, so does the poem, If by Rudyard Kipling, but how do the two relate? Pupils delve deep into the poem's third stanza, participate in a grand...

Here is a lesson that provides scholars with two opportunities to stretch their compare-and-contrast muscles. First, learners compare and contrast their experience reading the fourth stanza of If by Rudyard Kipling to listening to the...

Prepare for a mid-unit assessment based on Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club with a brainstorming and discussion lesson plan. Focused on two chapters from the novel ("Rules of the Game" and "Two Kinds"), the lesson plan guides tenth graders...