Every book has a few great characters, but James and the Giant Peach is the only one whose characters travel in a piece of fruit. The class creates T-charts for the main characters of the novel, while reading the book. They write actions...

Paired reading passages frequently appear on standardized exams, but finding text sets to use in the classroom is sometimes a challenge. A lesson plan on using paired texts includes a selection of passages and a graphic organizer for...

Invite your learners to take on the voice of a character from Ordinary People as they write a letter. Pupils use what they know about the given character to compose their letter, which must relate to the plot of the novel.

It's all about the plot, main events, and story mapping with this lesson. As the class reads the novel James and the Giant Peach, they create an excitement graph that actually charts key events and moments of excitement. After...

Bringing together the young artists and the young organizers in your class, this lesson takes that popular topic of tessellations and gives it algebraic roots. After covering a few basic properties and definitions, learners attack the...

Round out your unit on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis with a series of reading comprehension questions. As kids read, they challenge each other to answer specific connection questions from the text.

If you're looking to set your class up for writing effective arguments, try out this idea. While originally created with freedom as a guiding idea, the activity could easily be adapted for other themes. As a class, create a chart of...

To reinforce recognition of vocabulary words drawn from Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, readers engage in a vocabulary bingo game.

Sad, depressed, miserable, inconsolable, forlorn: so many synonyms have a lot of variety with their connotations. Through the guided imagery activity, writers explore the use of connotation and its influence on imagery and description by...

To better understand the conflict between Amir and Hassan, two characters in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, readers assume the voice of one of the boys and craft a letter to the other that explains his feelings and concerns.