Curated OER
How to Explore Religious Teachings Without Prejudice
Setting goals plays a major role in becoming a self motivated learner. Students will read and discuss a story, set personal goals, and analyze a sacred prayer. This lesson includes: teacher evaluation, goal worksheet, prayers, story, and...
Digital Public Library of America
Teaching Guide: Exploring Little Women
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is a literary masterpiece as well as a timestamp of the formative mid-nineteenth century in America. Using a primary source set of photographs, letters, and portraits, readers discuss the ways...
Curated OER
Applying Ahimsa to Traditional Stories
Investigate the life of Mahatma Gandhi by researching non-violent lifestyles. Learners define the word ahimsa and discuss the personal characteristics that made Gandhi a peaceful warrior. They also create a poster about the story "The...
Curated OER
Greek Story Vases
There are so many ways to tell a story! Develop visual storytelling skills while facilitating an understanding of Greek art and culture. Learners design Greek style images to tell a story through art. They add their designs to Styrofoam...
Curated OER
Tell Me A Story -- Feelings
Practice using feelings as a way to reflect on past experiences. The poem The End and the text Tell Me a Story Mama are used to identify feeling words. As an extension, pupils participate in a service learning project and...
Gateways
Teaching the Easter Story
If you are looking for a secular approach to teaching about Easter, this may just be the resource for you. Pupils read a paraphrased text depicting the last supper, arrest, and crucifixion of Jesus Christ as told in the Bible,...
Indian Land Tenure Foundation
Tribal Origin Stories
The teacher reads and retells Californian tribal origin or creation stories that come from the traditions of a variety of California Indian tribes. Then, pupils get together in groups and retell the stories they just heard; just as...
Have Fun Teaching
March Writing
How do you catch a leprechaun? Let your writers decide with a resource that has them thinking about story elements and writing creatively. Learners plan their writing in two graphic organizers—one with setting, characters, problem, and...
Curated OER
Sequencing
Are you looking for a way to teach sequence of events in your narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson to your middle school class, as it prompts young writers to create a narrative sequence map of events that have happened at school...
Curated OER
The Hunter Using Children's Literature to Teach the Geography of Africa
Learners are able to answer basic questions about the region and the use of natural resources, sketch a mental map of the story's setting, and find their way through the thematic maze/map.
Digital Public Library of America
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Any classroom study of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved requires careful planning and scaffolding. A primary source set that includes a video, illustrations, photos of artifacts, and a broadside of the Fugitive...
Curated OER
In Search of Self: Adolescent Themes in the Twentieth Century Short Story
Students read short stories that are related to adolescent issues and behaviors. In groups, they review the elements of a short story and vocabulary they might need while reading. To end the lesson, they read "Sir Tatton Sykes"...
Penguin Books
An Educator’s Guide to Ruta Sepetys
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...
Curated OER
Teaching "Theme" with Children's Literature
In this exercise, learners examine the difference between a theme, topic, and moral. After a class discussion on the definition of literary themes, the instructor reads The Cello of Mr. O by Jane Cutler. Next, individuals analyze the...
US Holocaust Museum
Remember the Children: Daniel’s Story
Imagine being a child forced from your home and into a concentration camp during World War II. Scholars prepare for a visit to the United States Holocaust Museum by researching the children of the horrible event. They analyze...
Curated OER
"An American Story"--The Responsibility of Citizenship
High schoolers describe the importance of being a responsible citizen. In this philanthropic actions lesson, students view "An American Story" and identify examples from the movie. High schoolers discuss and recognize philanthropic...
Scholastic
Connecting with Ruby Bridges
When Ruby Bridges entered an all-white school in New Orleans in 1960, she also entered history. Scholars consider what the experience must have been like for the young girl using two books that document her experience as well as a double...
Annenberg Foundation
Migrant Struggle
The American Dream is a goal that many pursue, but is it truly attainable for all people? An in-depth lesson explores the plight of migrants in twentieth-century America. The resource includes a video and author biographies and...
Curated OER
Daniel's Story Study Guide
Students explore the plight of Jews during the Holocaust. In this World War II instructional activity, students read Daniel's Story by Carol Matas and complete the provided comprehension, characterization, and vocabulary activities.
Curated OER
Teaching Hmong History And Culture Through Story Cloths
Students examine the culture and history of the Hmong. Using story cloths, they investigate how they were used as expressions of their culture. They discover the Hmong's economic conditions and how they were able to form a new way to...
Curated OER
Daniel's Story Study Guide
Young scholars explore the concept of prejudice. In this World War II lesson, students read Daniel's Story by Carol Matas. Young scholars complete the provided study guide as they read the novel and discuss the Holocaust.
Curated OER
Tales from Arabia
Students read about Scheherazade and Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp. In this literature/writing lesson, students understand the excitement of foreign places as the setting for a story. Students rewrite their own version of Scheherazade.
Curated OER
Historical Agency in History Book Sets (HBS)
Study historical events by combining the study of historical fiction and non-fiction. Learners read about true past events in historical fiction novels and then research non-fiction accounts of the same events. What are some differences...
Pearson
Unlocking and Exploring Folktales
Designed with many of the Common Core standards in mind, this 10-lesson unit is brimming with ELL strategies, teacher's notes, and the best of core instructional methods for teaching the common elements of folktales, and exploring...