Curated OER
Cheerful Hearts and Willing Feet
Learners explore characterization in Little Women. In this literature lesson plan, students participate in written analysis and research in order to explore Alcott's characterization in the novel.
Novelinks
Touching Spirit Bear: The Literary Mandala
Even someone with a dark side can make a good decision—and vice versa. Readers explore Cole's traits and decisions in Ben Mikaelson's Touching Spirit Bear and analyze his sunside and...
Curated OER
Bring Literature Circles Into Your Classroom
Tips and strategies for adding literature circles to your language arts curriculum.
Curated OER
Twelfth Night: QAR
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is used to model for readers how to craft four levels of questions that promote comprehension. Questions that can be answered with evidence right there in the text, questions that require readers to think and...
Curated OER
Analyzing the Use of Irony in a Short Story
Ninth graders examine how literature connects to real-life and see how irony aids in the development of theme. They read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, and discuss elements of foreshadowing and situational irony. Then learners will write...
Curated OER
Mayan Myths/Folktales
Middle schoolers work on summarizing a story, and they determine if it is a legend, a myth, or a fable. Working in groups to read and summarize stories, they then list evidence whether the tale is a myth, fable, or...
Novelinks
Man's Search for Meaning: Problematic Situation
What are the three most important items for survival? Readers of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, ponder this question individually and share their list with a group, that must then reach consensus on the three most...
Novelinks
The Winter’s Tale: Shakespeare’s Words
Varier wag? I'fecks? Posterns? As part of their vocabulary study, readers of The Winter's Tale try their hand at crafting Shakespearian-style sentences using words drawn from the play.
Novelinks
The House on Mango Street: Biopoem
Young poets demonstrate their understanding of a character from Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street by crafting a biopoem that captures the essence of this person.
Curated OER
Paradise Lost: Bloom’s Taxonomy of Thinking Processes
Chapter II of John Milton's Paradise Lost provides the text for a series of comprehension questions crafted using Bloom's Taxonomy.
Novelinks
The Color of Water: Family History Assignment
To conclude their study of James McBride's The Color of Water, class members create their own memoir, focusing on a family member who help shape their life.
Novelinks
Wildwood Dancing: Vocabulary Squares
As part of a study of Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing, class members create vocabulary squares for words drawn from the story.
Curated OER
How Advertisers Persuade
This plan centers around the article "How Advertisers Persuade," although it is not included in the instructional activity itself. Get your class thinking about advertising, appeals, and techniques that companies use to get their...
Curated OER
Secret Life of Bees Research
The Secret Life of Bees provides high schoolers an opportunity to connect the events in the novel to events in America’s history. After choosing a topic from a provided list, individuals research how the event affected the Civil Rights...
Novelinks
Things Fall Apart: Bloom’s Taxonomy
Promote critical thinking and literary analysis with a short activity. Readers of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart respond to a series of questions modeled on Bloom's Taxonomy.
Curated OER
Preparing for Poetry: A Reader's First Steps
Learners examine denotation and connotation in language, and paraphrase a poem. They read and analyze a sonnet by iam Shakespeare, analyze the attitude and tone, paraphrase a poem, and create a thesis about a poem based on textual evidence.
Curated OER
Quilt Squares-Literature Reporting
Differentiate instruction with this crafty approach to demonstrating comprehension. Learners choose a fictional book at their reading level, and afterward create a quilt square. The square is "decorated" with words, illustrations, and...
Brigham Young University
The Crucible: Problematic Situations
What would you do? To prepare for the final scene from Arthur Miller's The Crucible, readers are presented with a series of moral dilemmas and asked to consider what they would do in the same situations.
Curated OER
The Little Prince: Problematic Situation
Your plane has crashed in the Sahara desert. What do you do? Explore the possibilities with a role-playing activity based on Antoine de Saint Éxupery's The Little Prince. In groups, kids decide whether they would walk to find help...
Curated OER
The Red Badge of Courage: Vocabulary Bingo!
To reinforce recognition of vocabulary words drawn from Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, readers engage in a vocabulary bingo game.
Curated OER
All the World's a Stage
Enhance your teaching of plays with strategies for pre-teaching, engagement, and culminating projects.
Curated OER
Become a Character: Adjectives, Character Traits, and Perspective
Students use an online chart to match the character traits of a character in a book they are reading with specific actions the character takes. Students then work in pairs to "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 12: Story Event
Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....
Curated OER
Creatively Creating Expository Essays
Students, after reading Fahrenheit 451, brainstorm inventions that could have been in the novel. They present their invention to the class and writing an expository essay about their creation.