Curated OER
Slowly But Steadily, Madness Descended
Students read an article about the chaos that ensued at a bargain store opening. They discuss bias in the way the article is written and the words that are used. They roleplay what might have happened that day at the store opening and...
Curated OER
Global Art: A Sense of Caring
Students participate in a global art project in which students from around the world share their art. They explore different cultures and languages as they view different types of art.
Curated OER
Infectious Diseases
Seventh graders create a brochure for a fictional pharmaceutical company.
Curated OER
Chinese communities, Federation and the early Commonwealth
Students search and use a database. They compare and analyze primary sources and develop an awareness of the nature and extent of the Chinese community's involvement in the Federation celebrations.
Curated OER
So Much Can Happen in a Night!
Tenth graders explore Shakespearean comedy. They read and discuss A Midsummer Night's Dream and create a soundtrack, complete with CD cover, for the play.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Analyze Development of Plot Through Characters in Literary Text
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Often characters are a driving force behind the plot. In this lesson, students will learn how complex, multilayered characters contribute to the development of a story's plot...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Selecting Topics for Literary Analysis
A series of resources designed to teach students how to write a literary analysis. The first is a screencast [6 mins] that focuses on defining and introducing the parts of a literary analysis. The second is a slide show with seven slides...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Selecting Topics for Literary Analysis
A series of three PDF documents providing definitions of commonly used terms when preparing to write a literary analysis, explaining how to comment on a literary text, and demonstrating the process of analyzing the literary text "Hills...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Commentary on Quotations From Text in an Interpretive Response
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you will learn how to include quotations from a text and commentary on those quotations. It includes a variety of practice exercises.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Writing Interpretive Response: Thesis in an Interpretive Response
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] A learning module that teaches students how to write a strong thesis statement in four mini-lessons: Introduction, A Thesis Should Be Debatable, A Thesis Should Be...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Deeper Reading Response a Template for Teachers
Contains plans for three lessons that teach students to express and perform responses to reading. In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to PDF handouts and sites used in the lessons as well as...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: 103 Things to Do Before/during/after Reading
The highly-respected Reading Rockets program offers both teachers and students a toolkit of ways to connect more actively with the materials they read. Some of these techniques are specifically for fiction-reading, others are designed...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Commentary on Quotations From Text in an Interpretive Response
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Write an essay that uses embedded quotations to provide evidence in your response to an expository or a literary text.
Other
Oakland Writes: Student Exemplars: Tenth Grade: Response to Literature [Pdf]
An literary response essay written by a tenth-grader with notes calling attention to important writing concepts evident in the essay including a well-written title and introduction, a strong thesis, supporting details including quotes...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Reader Response in Hypertext: Making Personal Connections
Students write a narrative of place, a character sketch, an extended metaphor poem and a persuasive essay then link all four texts to quotations they have selected from a novel.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Analyze Use of Stylistic a Rhetorical Details
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you are going to learn to comment on writing composed by writers who are aesthetic types, writers who use language to bring images to our minds as we read....
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Why Did Mamma Change Her Mind? [Pdf]
"Why Did Mamma Change Her Mind?" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about a party. Mom said her son and daughter could each have 5 friends (5 boys and 5 girls). The girl wanted all girls so the party was cancelled. It is followed...
Read Works
Read Works: Our House Rules
[Free Registration/Login Required] A literary text about a little girl named Annie who learns some important house rules. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
CommonLit
Common Lit: "What Teachers Make" by Taylor Mali
CommonLit.org is a wonderful resource to use in a Language Arts classroom. Each text is accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. In addition, students can click on words to see the...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Blogging With Photovoice: Sharing Pictures in Integrated Class
Photovoice is a technique that has participants take photos in response to a prompt, reflect on the meaning behind three of their photos, and share the photos to find common themes. It is an ideal strategy for all forms of classrooms,...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Virtual Professional Learning Series
Our Virtual Professional Learning Series is created for teachers-by teachers-to bring together content experts and educators from all backgrounds. With an emphasis on fun, engaging, accessible, and free tools for classrooms, these...
Louisiana Department of Education
Louisiana Doe: Louisiana Believes: English Language Arts, Grade 9: Hope, Despair, and Memory
This unit teaches students about the importance of hope and remembrance during times of tragedy. Students explore the different ways characters and historical figures have embraced humanity and created civility as a response to...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Contact, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Thirty one primary sources including historical documents, literary texts, and visual images from which to explore European reactions to the land and the people of the New World and the Natives' responses to European contact and conquest.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: My Father's Miracle [Pdf]
"My Father's Miracle" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about a child who learned that his father was one of the people responsible for reversing the direction of the Chicago River, making it flow to the Mississippi instead of...