Improve high schoolers' public speaking with an engaging activity. Class members select three personally relevant quotes from a list. They then write a short speech for each quote, explaining how the quotes are personally relevant....

Eighth graders demonstrate their understanding with the final assessment in a literary analysis unit based on Karen Russell's short story, "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves." Having prepared for the assessment in the last few...

If you really want to know, this is a terrific lesson all about narratives, which is just a fancy way of saying telling stories. And you get to do it without being phony or anything. My favorite part is that you get to read a passage...

Need an extra challenge for your best readers? Check out a unit that uses Hannah Webster Foster’s epistolary novel, The Coquette, published in 1797, as the anchor text. The resource is packed with project ideas; each with its...

What tools do archaeologists and anthropologist use to learned about what life was like in the past. After watching West of The West's documentary Once Upon a Time that details how scientists use artifacts to establish a...

The effects of rising sea levels on Isle de Jean Charles, located off the coast of Louisiana, are documented in Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee's poignant short video. Viewers are asked to consider not only the plight of residents but also what...

Use this cross-curricular history lesson to work on your students' informational writing skills. After listening to songs and stories related to Sultana, they engage in a several activities to boost their understanding of slavery and...

Students read a short story and then map out the elements of a short story using "Inspiration" software. They read 'Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allen Poe.

Students read and write a short story. In this short story lesson plan, students read a short story and answer comprehension questions on it that teaches them about the world around them. Then they write a short story to teach...

Third graders identify the three major parts of a story. After reading the book "Stellaluna," students discuss the beginning, middle and end of the story. They write a short story depicting the events that would happen if the story...

Students read and comprehend a piece of fictional writing, analyze how setting, characterization, and plot affect the theme of a story and work in a group to create a new writing assignment. This 5-day plan culminates in students writing...

Third graders make predictions about the story "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" based on background knowledge. They read the story, stopping to verify or reject predictions. They write their own opinionated fairytales.

Analyze and interpret a literary work your class has read during the course. After reading a variety of literary works, middle schoolers alter the ending of a selection by creating an alternate ending. They generate five comprehension...

There is nothing more exciting than allowing learners to express themselves through a creative medium. In groups, they write narrative stories, focusing on building a strong storyline and dialogue. Next, they transform their stories into...

Students examine the men and women who were a part of the Harlem Renaissance. Individually, they recreate their favorite pieces of art from the time period and create their own original works after reading poem from the movement. In...

W. W. Jacobs' horror story, "The Monkey's Paw," is used to introduce foreshadowing. As they advance through the story, young readers make predictions about what might happen next and how the story might end. Pairs work through the...

Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...

Teach young learners that most drug addictions end in one of three outcomes: treatment, jail, or death. After watching a short video segment on the consequences of drug abuse, class members discuss what they viewed and consider what...

Life changes may cause stress. Here, scholars identify stressful situations in a peer's life and offer coping skills to make for a better day. A short story, "Stressed Out Sally," provides pupils with a look inside a bad day. After...

How can you read a character's tone? What about a narrator's tone? Analyze Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with a lesson that focuses on how word choice can change tone and how tone can affect the development...

Readers of "The Palace Thief" continue examining Ethan Canin’s short story and consider how the narrator's actions develop the central idea of how one's expectations and the expectations of others influence behavior.

Get ready to read The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 with a lesson about historical fiction. Spanning several centuries, the resource prompts learners to guess the historical era of a story based on a word or phrase...

Even an outline can give you enough information to execute an awsome project. The tasks for each of the seven weeks of this project are defined, as well as the objective and specific content facilitated through the project. Learners will...

The ninth in a fourteen-lesson series, this plan marks a sort of midpoint in a unit devoted to the study of short stories. Pupils learn about theme and work on their short story projects by adding to their blogs, checking in with the...