Help your middle schoolers identify personal experience narratives in their own lives through telling stories themselves and from family members or other adults. They study personal experience narratives in Swapping Stories and compare...

Young historians use their planning graphic organizer to prepare a personal narrative draft on expert trades. Since the instructional activity is considered the mid-unit assessment, learners respond to a writing prompt related to the...

Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...

The second lesson in a historical fiction series encourages pupils to develop a character profile of a colonial person using research acquired in the previous unit. Learners prepare their historical fiction narrative by responding to a...

The students create a personal narrative on their experiences with immigration. In this lesson plan, students are asked to read and understand examples of narrative writing as well as evaluate lyrics from Ben Folds Five to determine...

Students examine the slave perspective and how it differs from stories we hear in text books. In this slave narrative lesson, students use primary source narratives to compare how slave life was expressed by the slaves to how slave life...

Bring a time machine into your classroom with this writing lesson, in which young writers project themselves back in time and have a variety of choices from that point forward. They either write a conversation with a historical figure,...

Did you know that modern Chinese literature “grew from the psychoanalytical theory of Sigmund Freud”? Designed for a world literature class, seniors are introduced to “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” Shi Zhecun’s stream of...

Historical fiction novels give readers a chance to step into someone else's shoes. An educator's guide from Penguin Common Core Lesson Plans provides resources to accompany three historical fiction novels written by Ruta Sepetys: Between...

Students discover journalism by writing about themselves.  In this non-fiction writing lesson, students discuss the outline of a personal narrative and write a paper about an experience they've had.  Students reflect on the...

Are you one of the 100 million Americans whose ancestors passed through the doors of Ellis Island? Learn about the historic entry point for immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with an informative reading passage. After...

Sixth graders read legends to learn the history of Connecticut in a fun informative way.

Fourth graders write from the perspective of a child in the colonial period. In this writing instructional activity, 4th graders create a fictional character living in the colonial period and write about daily life from their perspective.

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...

Ninth graders identify and recognize characteristics of nonfiction in literary works, explore language and culture of Gullah people, compare and contrast purposes of spirituals and quilts in terms of their relationships to escape from...

The stories of the Silver People, the West Indies immigrants hired to work on the Panama Canal, come to life in a lesson about the building of the Panama Canal. Groups research why the canal was built, how it was build, the working...

Students examine pictures of people who lived during the feudal system. In groups, they research the role and lifestyles of the nobility and commoners. To end the lesson, they draw their own fictional person and write their own narrative...

Fifth graders read and analyze the novel, 'Dancing Feathers.' They identify the main story elements, develop personal and fictional narratives, retell the story from a different point of view, create a mask, and design a postcard.

Second graders describe the impact of certain figures in United States history, including Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. They describe experiences of early American explorers and compose narratives from the perspectives of others.

Students study the feudal system of the Middle Ages. In this Middle Ages lesson, students watch "The Feudal System at War". Students listen to an instructor-delivered lecture regarding the roles of monarchs, nobles, knights, and...

Students examine several narratives exploring attitudes to World War II involvement at the time. They develop their own opinions and write a fictional personal narrative to record their observations.

Students study conative and cognitive strengths through characters in literature. In this conative and cognitive strength lesson, students read about a favorite character or historical person. They make a chart of the difficulties the...

Students use survival stories as the theme for written assignments and a photography presentation.