Great website where you can look up literary symbols in a searchable index. For each symbol there is a brief explanation of its significance and links to other related symbols.

This tutorial focuses on symbolism in literature and how it reveals a deeper meaning. It provides a slide show that discusses what symbolism is, why and how it is used, how to identify it, common symbols, and classic symbols.

Learn about symbolism in literature and view examples of this literary technique.

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you will learn to explain the function of symbolism and allegory in a literary text such as a poem. The ability to recognize symbolism and allegory will...

This is an introduction to a unit on the political allegory Animal Farm by George Orwell, in which he uses animals to symbolize political leaders in the Russian Revolution.

[Free Registration/Login Required] This ReadWorks Unit engages students in a deep study of Madeleine L'Engle's science fiction work, A Wrinkle in Time. Students will investigate the following topics: the book's theme, the science fiction...

This lesson focuses on defining the literary terms in American Romanticism. It features a list of terms and an interactive crossword puzzle using them.

This introduction to contemporary drama focuses on the elements or characteristics of drama and the theme of the American Dream. It features the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, which is set in the 1950s.

The complete text of Douglass' "The Heroic Slave" with analysis by Robin Mac Donald in "Frederick Douglass' Revolutionary Revision". Complete with major symbols in the writing and an annotated bibliography.

A discussion of the literary devices used by Shakespeare in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Each device is linked to additional pages with more detailed information and examples.

As students become more aware of text complexity, an understanding of the formal properties of literature becomes more important. This is an excellent examination of the kinds of choices writers make that change the way readers receive...

The main objective is for students to be able to interpret a chosen character from the novel Animal Farm. Students will then have an opportunity to represent that character in original symbolic form and present it orally to the class.

This lesson focuses on Washington Irving and his short story "Devil and Tom Walker." It features links to the Discovery Education video: "Washington Irving's Life and Work" (Registration required) and a PDF of the short story text. It...

This unit focues on life and death, text-to-text connections, archetypes, symbols, and allusions, and writing in a non-native language. It features "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and...

This lesson provides and introduction to a short story unit. It focuses the lessons and morals taught by short stories and the use of literary elements in fiction. I provides a list of essential questions.

This lesson focuses on Sylvia Plath, her poetry, and how to analyze a poem. It features links to her biography; three of her poems: "Morning Song," "Lady Lazarus," and "Daddy"; an analysis of "Daddy"; and a poem anlaysis rubric. Students...

A poem about the eagle is shared within six, three-line stanzas. The poem allow the reader to look at the American symbol in a different way.

This unit focuses on the students selecting a play to read and study from an extensive list provided. A link to key drama terms is provided. Student read and respond to their selected text, learn the vocabulary, and take a quiz.

The Remembrance Day symbolism of the poppy started with a poem written by a World War I brigade surgeon who was struck by the sight of the red flowers growing on a ravaged battlefield. From the devastated landscape of the battlefields,...

This tutorial surveys the way readers should interpret literature or text in symbols, syntax, meaning, and the like. The article features a Literary Toolkit for Analyzing Literature.

A graphic organizer which allows students to document and list the figures of speech they identify in a given piece of literature. These include simile, metaphor, personification, and symbol, and require examples from the text.

Twenty-six half hour videos on literary analysis for high school students that feature authors, scholars, actors and noted critics. Topics include The Art of the Essay, Setting and Character in Short Fiction, Responding to Literature and...

In this lesson students listen to three modern songs that capture the symbolism in words--"Yesterday" by the Beatles, "Today" by the Smashing Pumpkins, and "Tomorrow" from the Annie Soundtrack. They will analyze their own experiences...

This is an article discribing Romanticism and the Romantic Period from 1798-1832 including its beginning with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Characteristics include heightened imagination, nature...